Educated at Kottawa Dharmapala Maha Vidyalaya, and Royal College Colombo, he has represented the latter in the prestigious Royal–Thomian annual cricket encounter. Even though Kusal was a right-handed batsman at the younger age of 11 to 13 years, he later switched his stance to become a left-handed batsman. This switch has been influenced by the batting stance of the Sri Lankan legend, Sanath Jayasuriya - his childhood idol and hero.

He made his IPL debut playing for Rajasthan Royals in the 2013 IPL season.

Prior to the start of the 2018 IPL season, he was approached by the Sunrisers Hyderabad team to replace their former captain David Warner who was banned for ball-tampering scandal against South Africa. However he turned down the offer as he was devoted to play in the domestic league matches in Sri Lanka during the period and wanted to make a Test return into the Sri Lankan cricket team for the upcoming series against West Indies in June, 2018. Later Alex Hales was called up to replace Warner for the 2018 IPL season following the refusal of Kusal Perera.

He is known as a quick scorer, and can hit the ball very hard which has a same batting style of former Sri Lanka legend Sanath Jayasuriya. In a first class match he scored 330 off 270 balls, which is a domestic record.

In March 2018, he was named as the vice-captain of Dambulla's squad for the 2017–18 Super Four Provincial Tournament. The following month, he was also named as the captain of Dambulla's squad for the 2018 Super Provincial One Day Tournament.

In August 2018, he was named as the vice-captain of Kandy's sqaud the 2018 SLC T20 League.

ODI career

Perera was a part of a 15-man squad that toured Australia in January 2013. He made his One day international debut against Australia in the 2nd ODI on January 13, 2013, replacing the injured Dinesh Chandimal, where he came to bat on number 4 and scored an unbeaten 14 from 16 balls before Sri Lanka won by 8 wickets.

Perera hit his maiden ODI ton against Bangladesh on 22 February 2014. He scored 106 from 124 balls before getting bowled By Rubel Hossain. He won the "Man of the Match" award.

Perera was not qualified for the squad for 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup tournament due to poor performance against India and England. After the tournament starts, Dimuth Karunaratne was injured and Perera was called to the World Cup squad. He played his first World Cup match against Scotland on 11 March 2015, where he scored quick 24 runs. He was replaced to this match due to injury for Dinesh Chandimal against Australia. He opened the batting for Sri Lanka on quarter finals of the World Cup, where he failed again to score runs, only scored 3 runs. Sri Lanka eventually lost the match and quit from the World Cup as well.

After the retirement of two cricket legends Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena from ODIs, Kusal was brought to the squad as the permanent opening batsman with Tillakaratne Dilshan during ODI series against Pakistan. He just lost the first match for quick 26 runs in Dambulla. In the second match at Pallekele, Kusal smashed Pakistani pace bowlers to all the parts of the ground and scored the joint second fastest ODI fifty by 17 balls with his legendary master Sanath Jayasuriya 17-ball fifty in 1997. The shots of Kusal was described by the international commentators as the dawn of a new Little Sana, with just the same aggressive batting by Sanath in the past. The strike rate of Kusal's innings was 272 and it is now the