He played for Sri Lanka Under19 cricket team and impressed in the tour of England in a 3 match test series in 1992 where he scored 242 runs at the average of 48.40.

[7][8][9] His test debut came as a blessing in disguise as he came as an injury replacement to Roshan Mahanama who was injured in a batting session in the nets.

[10] He was initially called into the Sri Lankan reserve squad for the home series against Pakistan in 1997 following his performances in domestic circuit.

[10] Originally an opening batsman, Arnold has since moved down the batting order mainly due to the rise of Marvan Atapattu.

However, when he started his career, he was seen primarily as a solid top order batsmen where he impressed against Australia during the AIWA Cup of 1999, as well as the subsequent test series against them, where he batted at no 3.

[11] The then Sri Lankan team head coach Dav Whatmore had felt that Russel could be utilised well when he plays down the order.

[14] He was part of the Sri Lankan team captained by Sanath Jayasuriya which won the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy jointly with India.

[15] Arnold's failure in the 2003 Cricket World Cup saw him sidelined for many months as selectors opted to groom the youngsters into the side.

[28] On 1 December 2016, Arnold won the Dialog Sri Lanka Cricket awards for the International Commentator of the year 2015.

In August 2021, he was appointed as the mentor of the Northern Rangers PUBG Mobile team for the Gamer.LK's Singer Esports Premier League.

[36][37] During the final of the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy which was held in Sri Lanka, Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly became frustrated with Arnold who was seen stepping onto the main danger area of the pitch while batting and Ganguly gave him warning to avoid stepping into the danger area of the pitch.