Sri Lanka captain Dasun Shanaka outlines reset plan post T20 World Cup exit
2 min readFeb 26, 2026 05:36 PM IST Co-hosts Sri Lanka’s T20 World Cup 2026 campaign ended with a 61-run defeat to New Zealand in Colombo, prompting captain Dasun Shanaka to call for a long-term structural reset built around fitness, planning and smarter to conditions. “I think fitness should be number one when playing for a country. That’s unnegotiable,” Shanaka said after the loss to New Zealand on Wednesday. He acknowledged that injuries to key players such as Wanindu Hasaranga and Matheesha Pathirana made continuity difficult, while stressing that fitness standards must remain uniform across squad. “I played all past five World Cups, except one World Cup, this was the topic that has been spoken in all the other World Cups-injuries, injuries, how do we do better in those?” reflected Shanaka. Shanaka also pointed to the importance of long-term planning over short-term fixes. “If we are going to a World Cup plan, we should go with long-term goals. It’s hard to play a tournament like this with short-term goals,” he said. On his own role, …
