Kusal Mendis is set to be appointed captain of the Sri Lanka Test team in place of Dhananjaya de Silva, Hiru News reported on Tuesday, citing cricket sources. Sri Lanka Cricket has not announced the change.
Hiru News reported that a decision has been made to appoint Mendis to the role and that de Silva is set to be removed from the position. The report is attributed to cricket sources rather than to the board, and carries no date for an announcement.
What this would change
Mendis is already Sri Lanka’s white-ball captain. He was given the one-day international and Twenty20 international captaincy in May, ahead of the tour of the West Indies, in a split-captaincy arrangement under which de Silva retained the Test job and Kamindu Mendis was named vice-captain across all three formats.
The change now reported would collapse that split. It would hand Mendis the Test side as well, making him Sri Lanka’s captain in all three formats — a reversal of the structure the selectors put in place less than five months ago.
The timing
The reports come days into a tour on which de Silva’s side is due to play. Sri Lanka’s Twenty20 squad departed for Pakistan earlier this month for a programme that takes in a three-match T20I series, a two-match Test series and a one-day tri-nation series also involving England. A 16-member squad for the ODI tri-series was named on 4 October. The T20I matches are scheduled for Rawalpindi on 9, 11 and 13 October.
A captaincy decision taken mid-tour, before the Test leg, would be an unusually compressed piece of timing.
Treat this as a report, not an appointment
Nothing in the reporting indicates that Sri Lanka Cricket has confirmed the change, and no other verified newsroom had carried the story at the time of writing. The sourcing is explicitly to “cricket sources.”
Readers searching for this story should also be careful of an earlier and different one: the May announcement that made Mendis white-ball captain while de Silva kept the Test side is widely indexed and reads similarly at a glance. That was a different decision, five months ago, and it is the arrangement this report says is now being undone.
Not reported
No filing names the selectors or officials who took the decision, gives a reason for de Silva’s removal, or says whether he will remain in the Test squad as a player. There is no indication of when an announcement is expected, whether the change applies from the Pakistan Tests or from a later series, or who would serve as vice-captain. Neither player has commented, and Sri Lanka Cricket has issued no statement. Nothing is reported on whether the Test vice-captaincy or the wider selection panel is affected.
