5 players who were surprisingly handed over the captaincy
Captaincy in international cricket has always been pretty hard to come by. The competition for captaincy has been cut-throat and there is no doubt that leading the country is one of the most important things on every international cricketer's checklist.
Having said that, not all great players have excelled in handling the team responsibility and not all deserving candidates have been able to lay their hands on the captaincy. While greats like Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara failed to live up to expectations, brilliant cricketing brains such as Shane Warne were largely overlooked for the role.
And, still there are players who were handed the captaincy out of nowhere. These players weren't really expected to be captains of their sides but due to unusual circumstances were given the responsibility of leading the sides. Here are 5 such players who were handed over captaincy surprisingly.
#5 Dimuth Karunaratne - Sri Lanka (ODIs)
Lasith Malinga was named the captain of the Sri Lankan ODI side in the build up to the 2019 World Cup.
However, after the drubbing in the ODI series against South Africa, there were serious doubts about Malinga as captain for the tournament.
On the other hand, Dimuth Karunaratne led Sri Lanka to a historic series win in the Tests against the Proteas, for which he received huge accolades. Owing to the results in the Test series, Karunaratne not only made a comeback to the ODI side for the World Cup but was also named the captain of the Sri Lankan contingent for the marquee event.
And even though Sri Lanka failed to make it to the semi-finals of the tournament, Karunaratne was retained as the ODI captain post the World Cup and he is now seen as a long-term captaincy prospect across formats.
Also see – World Test Championship points table