Sri Lanka had made it to the World Cup final in 2007 and 2011, and to the T20 World Cup final in 2009 and 2012 – but had failed to win any of the four matches. It was a formidable unit, but they had been playing the bridesmaid for far too long.

The next major tournament was the 2014 T20 World Cup in Bangladesh. In 2013, they named Chandimal their captain in both ODIs and T20Is. It had been a curious choice: Muttiah Muralidaran and Chaminda Vaas were gone, but Sri Lanka still had their stalwarts – Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Lasith Malinga, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Angelo Mathews, Rangana Herath.

Unfortunately, while he was getting runs in Test cricket, Chandimal’s form deserted him completely in the shorter formats. In ODIs, he went through the year with 459 runs at 27. In T20Is, he made 65 runs in seven innings – from 84 balls. He was neither getting the big runs nor playing the short blitzes.

The next year was little better. Ahead of the World Cup, Chandimal made 18 and 3 in the two T20Is against Bangladesh in Chattogram. He began the tournament with 12 against South Africa, did not get to bat against the Netherlands, and chose not to bat in the top six against England.

Sri Lanka made 189-4. England chased the target with four balls to spare – but well past the cut-off time. Chandimal had already been penalised after Sri Lanka had bowled an over short in a T20I against New Zealand three months ago. His second offence was now met with a fine and a one-match ban.

Sri Lanka had to win their next match, against New Zealand, but without Chandimal. Sri Lanka replaced him with Lahiru Thirimanne. Led by Malinga, Sri Lanka made only 119, but it did not matter as Herath (5-3) shot out New Zealand for only 60 and qualified for the semi-final against the West Indies.

On the day of the match, Sri Lanka Cricket put out a two-sentence tweet to inform that Chandimal had “opted not to play” in the match.

It could not have been an easy decision to make for Chandimal, whose family had lost everything (including his cricket kit) to the 2004 tsunami. He had to start from scratch and find his way through to the top to a team of some of the greatest names in the history of the sport. Given how strong they were in limited-overs cricket, he knew Sri Lanka were close to a trophy. He moved away from being part of history.

The rest is history.

Sri Lanka beat the West Indies, then India, to win the T20 World Cup for the first time. Malinga earned wide praise after the final, where the Sri Lankans sealed the match by restricting India to 130-4. Malinga himself showed the way, conceding three in the 18th over and seven in the 20th, while Nuwan Kulasekara gave away four in the 19th.

The hapless Indians had no obvious response to the chain of pinpoint yorkers wide of the off-stump, supported by a packed off-side field. Malinga’s genius – with the ball as well as with the plan – helped Sri Lanka win the trophy, but Chandimal had played his part as well.

Chandimal did lead Sri Lanka again, in all three formats.

What was it about 2014?

Australia visited the UAE to play Pakistan later that year. After a run of 5, 3, 13, 36, 18, 0, 15 across formats, Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq “opted to rest himself after a lean run of scores” from the third ODI – “an unprecedented move for Pakistan”, to quote the Wisden Almanack.

And on December 30, some time after the Boxing Day Test match got over, MS Dhoni called time on his Test career – with one match left in the series.

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