Sri Lanka batsman Tillakaratne Dilshan, who pioneered the “Dilscoop” flick over the wicketkeeper’s head, has announced his international retirement, reports BBC.
Dilshan, 39, will step down after a final one-day international on Sunday and two more Twenty20 internationals next month, all against Australia.
Dilshan made his international debut in 1999 and was part of the Sri Lanka team that won the World Twenty20 in 2014.
As well as being an innovative, aggressive batsman, he was also an off-spin bowler, taking 152 international wickets, an excellent fielder and an occasional wicketkeeper, also captaining his country for a spell between 2011 and 2012.
Dilshan, who has scored 17,624 international runs, is the most capped T20 player in Sri Lankan history and the fifth highest in ODIs, though he retired from Tests in 2013.
His retirement comes in the wake of significant pressure from Sri Lanka’s selectors. Dilshan’s own performance has been outstanding over the past few years – he averages 49.18 in ODIs since the start of 2013, and had his most successful ODI year in 2015, when he scored 1207 runs at an average of 52.47. But with Angelo Mathews and the selectors now seeking to build a team for the 2019 World Cup, Dilshan was persuaded to retire. He had also been Sri Lanka’s top scorer in this year’s World T20 campaign, and remains, at 39, one of the team’s best fielders.
