Things were not good for his captaincy, where Sri Lanka lost the first match for Zimbabwe in the Bangladesh tri-series. During the match he suffered a knee injury and ruled out from the rest of the ODI series. Dinesh Chandimal captained the side and won the series as well. Initial news revealed that, Mathews will recover for the Test series against Bangladesh, but he did not recovered and hence dropped from the Test squad. He also missed T20I series, where Chandimal appointed as the T20I captain. This Bangladesh tour was the third-consecutive overseas tour Mathews has withdrawn from with a hamstring injury, having also done so last year in South Africa and India. In 2016, he had missed a full tour of Zimbabwe with "multiple leg injuries" as well.