Ranatunga went on to captain the Sri Lanka national cricket team in 1988, taking control of it for the next 11 years, transforming it from a weak, routinely defeated team into a competitive and successful unit. He led the team to win the 1996 World Cup. His innovative captaincy took a Sri Lanka team, given little chance prior to the competition, for cricket's greatest prize. His strategies were commended by many cricketing greats and followed by their teams. He was the brain behind the strategy of scoring as many runs as possible in the first 15 overs of an ODI match in which there are field restrictions. This strategy was still followed by the batsmen in the Powerplays. He was widely recognised as a belligerent leader and was famous for defending his players at all costs regardless of what they did.
Retirement
Ranatunga lost the national team captaincy in 1999 after Sri Lanka's poor showing at the World Cup in England, although he was chosen as one of five Wisden Cricketers of the Year for that year. In June 2000, Ranatunga played in Sri Lanka's 100th Test match, becoming the only player to represent his country in their first and hundredth Test. He retired from playing cricket in 2001.
Controversies
Fitness
Ranatunga was known for controversially calling a runner during long innings due to his level of fitness. After the second final of the One Day triangular series in Australia in the 1995/6 season, when the incident with Healy occurred, Ranatunga instructed his players not to shake the Australian players' hands. During this match, Sanath Jayasuriya and Australian paceman Glenn McGrath were also involved in physical jostling; Jayasuriya accused McGrath of racially abusing him, a claim that the bowler denied.
Defence of Muralitharan
Ranatunga is also remembered for his stand in a One Day International against England. Australian Umpire Ross Emerson called Muttiah Muralitharan for throwing. Ranatunga exchanged heated words with umpire Emerson and led his team to a point just inside the boundary line, halting play and giving the impression that he was about to forfeit the match, until the Sri Lankan management conferred with him and play resumed. English captain, Alec Stewart, was openly critical of Ranatunga's behaviour. In a comment caught on the stump microphone he was heard to say to Ranatunga "Your conduct today has been appalling for a country's captain". The match was bad-tempered, with instances of shoulder-bumping.
Wrangles with Warne
There has always been a grudging mutual admiration between Warne and Ranatunga. When the former visited Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami to aid Muralitharan in his "great work" there, he developed an amiable rapport with his long-time foe: "We even wagged," he confirmed later. Not long after, however, Ranatunga was lambasting him in a scathing newspaper attack. "You can't be mates with everyone," Warne wrote in his 2008 book Shane Warne's Century, serialised by The Times in September, "and if there was any way I could knock him down to number 101 for the purposes of this book, I'd be delighted to do so. But having taken on the task, I want to do it seriously, and the fact is that Ranatunga helped to put Sri Lanka on the cricket map. And you know what? Deep down, I'll quietly admit that I rated him as a cricketer."
Ranatunga's highest Test batting score of 135 not out was made against Pakistan, Colombo, 1985–1986
His best Test bowling effort of 2 for 17 came against New Zealand, Kandy, 1983–1984
Ranatunga's captaincy record was as follows: 56 matches, 12 wins, 19 losses, 25 draws.
;One-day Internationals
He has the record for the most runs scored by any batsman in ODI history at number 5 position and also the first to score over 4500 ODI runs when batting at no 5 position.
