Though he was appointed several times as the captain, it was only temporary due to the injury concerns of captain Mathews. However, after the major loss to Zimbabwe in home soil for the first time, Mathews' captaincy was questioned by many critics. The result was, Mathews stepped down from the role in all formats on 11 July 2017. With that, Tharanga was named permanent captain of the limited over formats for Sri Lanka.
