[2] He is the current national chief selector of both Sri Lanka men's and women's cricket teams.

[9] He was the leading run-scorer for the tournament, finishing with 414 runs in six matches, including another unbeaten century in the final.

[13] In November 2021, he was selected to play for the Jaffna Kings following the players' draft for the 2021 Lanka Premier League.

[14] On the 2006 tour of England he really began to develop, particularly in the one-day game, scoring over 300 runs in Sri Lanka's 5–0 whitewash of the hosts.

In addition, Tharanga is also well known for taking part in a record-breaking first wicket partnership with Sanath Jayasuriya in the final match of this series.

Tharanga is the second batsman in the world who was involved with 7 times 200+ partnerships in ODI cricket after Ricky Ponting.

[24] On 14 November 2016, he led Sri Lankan team for the first time in an ODI against Zimbabwe, which was won comfortably by 8 wickets.

At the end, Sri Lanka won the tri-series by defeating the hosts Zimbabwe in the final by 6 wickets.

[25] Tharanga was selected again as the ODI captain for the South Africa series, when Mathews was not available after he sustained an injury during the second T20I.

[31] With the calf injury of Mathews prior to 2017 ICC Champions Trophy,[32] Tharanga was named stand-in captain for the first group match against South Africa.

However, after the major loss to Zimbabwe in home soil for the first time, Mathews' captaincy was questioned by many critics.

[35] Tharanga lead Sri Lanka on day 4 in the first test against India on 28 July 2017, where stand-in captain Rangana Herath was injured while playing in the match.

Apart from suffering whitewashes at the hands of South Africa, India and Pakistan in 2017, that threatened automatic qualification for the 2019 Cricket World Cup, Tharanga also got into trouble twice due to slow over rates and was suspended.

[39] Under Tharanga's captaincy, Sri Lanka suffered three 5-0 ODI whitewashes in the year 2017 against South Africa, India and Pakistan.

[46] An independent anti-doping tribunal was convened at which Tharanga pleaded guilty, claiming he had taken some herbal remedy to ease discomfort caused by a long-standing shoulder injury.

[44] The tribunal accepted that Tharanga "had no intention to enhance his sporting performance or to mask the use of another performance enhancing substance, but that he had failed to satisfy the high levels of personal responsibility implicit upon him as an international cricketer subject to anti-doping rules".

[44] The tribunal found Tharanga guilty of breaching the ICC Anti-Doping Code and banned him from all cricket and cricket-related activities for a three-month period (9 May 2011 to 8 August 2011).