The Sri Lanka men's national cricket team, nicknamed The Lions, represents Sri Lanka in men's international cricket. It is a Full Member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) with Test, One-Day International (ODI) and T20 International (T20I) status. The team first played international cricket in 1926–27, and were later awarded Test status in 1981, which made Sri Lanka the eighth Test cricket playing nation. The team is administered by Sri Lanka Cricket.
Mohamed Farveez Maharoof, or Farveez Maharoof, is a professional Sri Lankan cricketer, who played in Tests and ODIs. He first made his impression in the 2004 U19 World Cup in which he captained the Sri Lankan team. He enjoyed a prolific school career for Wesley College, with a highest score of 243 and best bowling figures of 8 for 20. An all-rounder, he made his Test debut in 2004.
Herath Mudiyanselage Rangana Keerthi Bandara Herath, known as Rangana Herath, is a former Sri Lankan cricketer, who played all forms of the game and a former Test captain for Sri Lanka. Herath is the most successful left arm bowler in Test cricket history. He is currently working as spin bowling consultant with the Bangladesh cricket team.
Denagamage Praboth Mahela de Silva Jayawardene is a former Sri Lankan cricketer who is the current consultant coach of the Sri Lanka National Cricket Team and the Head Coach of the Indian Premier League franchise Mumbai Indians. He is the most successful captain for Sri Lanka along with Sanath Jayasuriya. During the time of his captaincy, he was known mainly for his tactical acumen for decades and was rewarded for his captaincy instincts.
The West Indies cricket team toured Sri Lanka for two Test matches and an ODI tri-series in July and August 2005. West Indies were severely depleted owing to a contract dispute, which led to players like Brian Lara, Chris Gayle and Corey Collymore refusing to play. Thus, Sri Lanka went into the series as even more overwhelming favourites, their strong game at home and West Indies' poor form – with only one Test win in the last ten attempts. And they confirmed their favourite status, winning both Tests in rather emphatic style, although their batting showed worrying weaknesses against West Indian bowlers who bowled with more heart than talent at times.
The Indian Oil Cup 2005 was a three-team One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament held in Sri Lanka between 30 July and 7 August 2005. The participating teams were hosts Sri Lanka, and India and West Indies. Sri Lanka won the tournament beating India by 18 runs in the final.
The Bangladeshi cricket team toured Sri Lanka for three One Day International cricket matches and two Test cricket matches in August and September 2005. The Bangladeshi team is coming off a moderately successful tour of England, by their standards, as they pushed Australia close in one ODI and beat them in another. However, they still lost five out of six matches in the NatWest Series, and both of the Test matches, and remain at the bottom of both the ICC Test Championship and ICC ODI Championship. The hosts Sri Lanka, meanwhile, are undefeated in home ODI tournaments since February 2004, and in home Test series since March 2004, both against the top-ranked Australia. Their win in the Indian Oil Cup a month before this series saw them into second place in the ODI Championship, but they are only ranked sixth in Tests.
The 2005–06 edition of the VB Series was a three-team One Day International men's cricket tournament held in Australia in January and February 2006, between the hosting nation's team, South Africa and Sri Lanka.. The teams played each other four with five points awarded for a win and a possible bonus point awarded either to the winners or losers depending on run rate. The top two teams on points went through to the best-of-three finals series. All matches were day-night matches except the final meeting between South Africa and Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka toured England for cricket matches during the 2006 international cricket season. England were back home for the first time since September and looked to maintain their Test standards, which saw them keep their second place in the ICC Test Championship in India, and the teams were also competing for sixth place in the ICC ODI Championship as both England and Sri Lanka were coming off the back of two lost ODI tours on the Asian sub-continent, against India and Pakistan respectively. To add to problems, both teams were likely to be missing some key members of the team as England were without some of their squad for their previous tour and, two days before Sri Lanka departed for England, it was revealed that skipper Marvan Atapattu would stay at home for the tour due to back problems that had forced him to skip his previous tour too. Jehan Mubarak was brought in as his replacement.
The Sri Lankan cricket team toured New Zealand for cricket matches during the 2006–07 cricket season. It was the third successive season Sri Lanka visited New Zealand, after the 2005–06 tour was aborted and reschuled for the winter of 2005–06. Originally, the tour had been set to include three Tests and five One Day Internationals, but New Zealand Cricket chief executive Martin Snedden announced in June that one of the Tests would be replaced with two Twenty20 Internationals.
The India cricket team toured Sri Lanka between 18 July and 2 September 2001. The two sides played a triangular ODI series also involving New Zealand, following which they played a three-match Test series. India's tour also included a one-day and a three-day fixture ahead of the ODI and Test series respectively.
Sulieman Jamaal Benn is a West Indian cricketer who plays international cricket for the West Indies and first-class cricket for Barbados.
The Bangladesh cricket team toured Sri Lanka for three Test matches and three One Day Internationals in June and July 2007. This series held Mohammad Ashraful's first Test and ODI matches as captain of Bangladesh. Sri Lanka ended up winning all the Test matches and One-day Internationals.
The England cricket team toured Sri Lanka from 28 September to 22 December 2007. England made two trips to Sri Lanka in this tour with the ODI team arriving on 25 September before returning to England on 15 October. The Test team arrived on 15 November and stayed there for the remainder of the tour. The tour included three Test matches and five ODIs.
The 2008–09 international cricket season was between September 2008 and March 2009. The season saw the security concerns for cricket in Pakistan reach a pinnacle. The ICC Champions Trophy, scheduled to be held in Pakistan in September 2008, was postponed to 2009 after five of the participating nations refused to send their teams for the event. In November 2008, a Pakistani militant group launched terror attacks in Mumbai. This led to India cancelling their tour of Pakistan originally scheduled for January and February 2009. Sri Lanka agreed to tour Pakistan in place of India but the tour was jeopardised by a terror attack in Lahore where gunmen fired at a bus carrying the Sri Lankan team, injuring six members of the team. The Champions Trophy was later relocated to South Africa and no international cricket were played in Pakistan for more than five years. This period of isolation ended when Zimbabwe toured Pakistan in May 2015. After successfully hosting few T20Is against World-XI, Sri Lanka cricket team and the West Indians from 2017 to 2018, few matches of Pakistan Super League from 2017 to 2019, whole season in 2020 as well as hosting complete tours against Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi cricket teams respectively during the 2019–20 season, built good reputation of Pakistan. Hence, by the end of 2019, the Pakistan Cricket Board, announced that they would no longer play any of their future home matches at a neutral venue, indicating that International Cricket has returned to the country on full-time basis.
The 2007 Cricket World Cup, which took place in the West Indies from 13 March to 28 April 2007, featured 16 teams, who were divided into four groups. Group B was made up of full ICC members Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and associate member Bermuda. Sri Lanka won all three of their matches to finish top of the group and secure qualification for the Super Eights stage of the tournament. Bangladesh's victory over India in their opening match meant they finished as runners-up and joined Sri Lanka in the Super Eights, while India and Bermuda were knocked out. Sri Lanka went on to finish second in the Super Eights and then beat New Zealand in their semi-final before losing to Australia in the final.
The 2008 ICC Awards were held on 10 September 2008 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Previous events were held in London (2004), Sydney (2005), Mumbai (2006) and Johannesburg (2007). The ICC had been hosting ICC Awards since 2004 and was into its fifth year. They were presented in association with the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) and honours for the Twenty20 International Performance of the Year were also awarded for the first time. The ICC awards the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy to the Cricketer of the Year, which is considered to be the most prestigious award in world cricket.
The History of the Sri Lanka national cricket team began with the formation of the Colombo Cricket Club in 1832. By the 1880s a national team, the Ceylon national cricket team, was formed which began playing first-class cricket by the 1920s. The Ceylon national cricket team had achieved associate member status of the International Cricket Council in 1965. Renamed Sri Lanka in 1972, the national team first competed in top level international cricket in 1975, when they played against West Indies during 1975 Cricket World Cup; West Indies won the match by 9 wickets at Old Trafford, Manchester, England.
The final of the 2020–21 Road Safety World Series took place on 21 March 2022 at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium in Raipur, India. It was played between India Legends and Sri Lanka Legends. India Legends won by 14 runs for their maiden triumph.
