Lasith Malinga


Separamadu Lasith Malinga is a Sri Lankan former cricketer who is widely regarded as one of the greatest limited overs bowlers of all time. Playing as a right-arm fast bowler, Malinga was commonly used as a specialist death bowler, and captained the Sri Lanka national cricket team to the 2014 T20 World Cup title. He was nicknamed "Slinga Malinga" due to his distinctive round-arm action, sometimes referred to as a sling action. He announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on 14 September 2021.
Malinga's unorthodox action and dipping slower ball yorkers are credited with much of his success. He changed the dynamics and landscape of death bowling in limited overs cricket through his technique and approach. Malinga is known for his ability to take wickets on consecutive balls, often through bowling in-swinging yorkers: he is the only bowler in the world to have two World Cup hat-tricks, the first bowler to take a double hat-trick, the only bowler to take 4 wickets in 4 balls twice in international cricket, the only bowler to have taken three hat-tricks in ODIs and only bowler to have two double hat-tricks. He is also the first bowler to take five hat-tricks across all formats of international cricket, and holds the record for most hat-tricks in international cricket.
On 22 April 2011, he announced his retirement from Test cricket. He was named as the official event ambassador for the 2012 World Twenty20 World Cup in Sri Lanka by ICC. On 26 July 2019, he retired from One Day International cricket after the first ODI against Bangladesh.
In September 2019, during the series against New Zealand, Malinga became the first bowler to take 100 wickets in Twenty20 International cricket. He achieved a hat-trick, becoming the first bowler to claim two T20I hat-tricks, and took four wickets in four consecutive balls in the third over of his spell. This feat made him the second bowler to accomplish this in T20I history, following Rashid Khan.
In January 2021, he retired from T20 franchise cricket. In September 2021, Malinga announced his retirement from all forms of cricket.

Early years

Malinga grew up in modest circumstances in Rathgama, a coastal village situated northwest of Galle. He often played cricket with friends on the sand banks and coconut groves by a river in his cricket-obsessed village. His father Separamadu Milton, is a retired bus mechanic who worked out of the Galle depot. He had his education at three schools, namely Mahinda College, Galle; Vidyaloka College, Galle and Vidyathilake Vidyalaya, Thiranagama. Malinga had his primary education at Vidyathilake Vidyalaya in Thiranagama, a school situated near by his village. He practices Buddhism. He married Tanya Perera in 2010.
After passing the grade 5 Scholarship Examination in 1993, he entered Vidyaloka College, Galle for his secondary education, where he started his cricket career. Here Malinga was discovered by former Sri Lankan paceman Champaka Ramanayake. Champaka, so impressed by Malinga's raw ability, invited him to join the Galle Cricket Club. Champaka also helped him to join the first XI cricket team of Mahinda College, Galle. Joining Mahinda College was the turning point of his cricket career and he was helped by some of its distinguished Old boys. A short-lived attempt to make Malinga's action more upright led to much reduced pace and failing accuracy. Malinga promptly returned to his natural action with success, and with great encouragement from Ramanayake.
He didn't pick up hard-ball cricket until relatively in his teenage years but his talent was discovered by fast bowling coaches Champaka Ramanayake and Anusha Samaranayake. Both of them brought him to the domestic system and nurtured him during his early years.
On his first hard-ball game, in inter-village match at the local ground of Rathgama, he dismissed Kumaraiya, flying the off stump, making it his first leather-ball wicket. During club cricket, he got nicknamed daakaththa by his teammates.

International career

Debut years

Malinga made his Test debut on 1 July 2004 against Australia at Marrara Oval In Darwin. He was immediately successful, taking six wickets in the match He was impressed by the friendliness of the Australian team in general, and in particular Adam Gilchrist who sought him out after the game to present him with one of the match stumps in the Sri Lankan dressing room.
Malinga made his ODI debut in Sri Lanka's opening match of the 2004 Asia Cup against the United Arab Emirates, becoming the 123rd player to do so. Easily winning the match by 116 runs, Malinga took the wicket of the Emirati captain, Khurram Khan to finish the match with figures of 1/39. Since then he has become a regular member on the ODI squad.

Test retirement

He developed into Sri Lanka's fastest Test bowler and a regular member of both their Test and One Day International sides. He has earned a reputation for troubling batsmen with his lively pace and well-directed bouncer. He regularly bowls at speeds between and sometimes slightly faster. As time went by he started to lose pace, clocking around. His slower off cutter was also menacing. He burst onto the test scene after ripping through the New Zealand top order, helping Sri Lanka draw the test series on their 2006/07 tour of New Zealand. He announced his retirement from Test cricket on 22 April 2011 in order to prolong his career in ODI and T20 cricket.

Golden World Cups

During the 2007 Cricket World Cup Super 8 match on 28 March between Sri Lanka and South Africa, Malinga became the first player to take four wickets in four consecutive balls in One Day International cricket. Needing five runs for victory and with five wickets in hand, Malinga was handed the ball in the 45th over of the South African's innings. In the final two balls of the over he cleaned bowled Shaun Pollock and had Andrew Hall caught at cover. In his next over, he removed Jacques Kallis caught behind then bowled Makhaya Ntini. This was only the fifth hat-trick in World Cup history, the third ODI hat-trick for Sri Lanka and the 24th overall in ODIs. He nearly took the final wicket as a ball shaved the stumps. Despite Malinga's lethal spell, however, South Africa proceeded to win the match by 1 wicket with 10 balls still left. He was named in the 'Team of the Tournament' by ESPNcricinfo for the 2007 World Cup.
During the 2011 Cricket World Cup, Malinga took his second career hat-trick in Sri Lanka's group stage match against Kenya. This made him the first bowler to take two World Cup hat-tricks, and the fourth to take two hat-tricks in all One Day International cricket. He was named as part of the 'Team of the Tournament' by ESPNcricinfo. In August 2011, he managed yet another hat-trick, against Australia, to become the first man to take three hat-tricks in ODI cricket.
For his performances in 2011, he was named as 12th man in the World ODI XI by the ICC. He was also named in the World ODI XI by the ICC for 2012 and 2013. He was also named in the World ODI XI by the ESPNcricinfo.
He was named in the 'Team of the Tournament' by ESPNcricinfo for the 2009 T20I World Cup. His spell of 5 for 28 against Australia was voted to be the second-best ODI bowling performance of the year 2011 by ESPNcricinfo voters. His spell of 5 for 31 at Pallekele against England was voted as the best T20I bowling performance of the year 2012 by ESPNcricinfo.

Injury

After West Indies tour, Malinga suffered a back injury and a knee injury. Because of this, he did not participate in both the New Zealand tour and the Indian tour, hoping that he would recover for the beginning of the 2016 ICC World Twenty20. Malinga was appointed as the captain for the 2016 Asia Cup, where he was only able to play against UAE, with a match-winning bowling performance. The knee injury caused him to skip the remaining matches and Sri Lanka lost them all. Sri Lanka announced their World T20 team with Malinga as the captain, but continuous injuries resulted in Malinga stepping down from the captaincy and Angelo Mathews was named the captain in all formats. Even though Sri Lanka felt that Malinga would recover for the World cup matches, his injuries ruled him out of the Twenty20 squad. He returned home due to a prevailing bone bruise on his left knee.

Captaincy

Malinga was named as the vice-captain of the Sri Lankan Twenty20 International team in October 2012. He became captain of Sri Lankan Cricket Team in 2014 ICC World Twenty20 after Dinesh Chandimal received a ban. He successfully led the team to win the world cup. Due to continuous injuries, he stepped down from the captaincy in 2015.
His spell of 5 for 56 against Pakistan at Mirpur in 2014 was named as the best ODI Bowling Performance of the year by ESPNcricinfo. He was also nominated for his spell of 5 for 52 against the same opponents in the group stage game.
However, in 2016 against India, he was appointed as the ODI captain due to injuries to permanent captain. Sri Lanka lost the match in that game.
On 14 December 2018, Malinga was appointed as the limited over captain for New Zealand tour.

International comeback

Malinga quit from all domestic and international cricket for a one-year after his T20I match against UAE in March 2016. Due to these injuries, Malinga lost matches against England, Australia, and Zimbabwe Tri-series, where Sri Lanka involved heavy defeats in limited over cricket and went down in international rankings. Though he recovered from injuries in late December, Malinga was unavailable to South Africa series after a bout of dengue. Malinga was picked up to the Australian tour and played in the match against Prime Minister's XI. His comeback match came against Australia on 17 February 2017, where he took two wickets and two catches. Sri Lanka won the match by 5 wickets at the end.
On 6 April 2017, during the second T20I against Bangladesh, Malinga took a hat-trick, becoming the second Sri Lankan and fifth overall to take a T20I hat-trick. With that, Malinga has taken 4 international hat-tricks, which is most by a Sri Lankan player and joint highest with Pakistani Wasim Akram.
Malinga was included to the ODI squad for 2017 ICC Champions Trophy in June 2017. He played his comeback match against South Africa on 3 June 2017 at the pool match of Champions Trophy. However, his comeback was not good at all, where he finished the spell wicket less by giving 57 runs and put down a catch and was sloppy in the fielding as well. Sri Lanka suffered a heavy loss in the match by 96 runs finally.
During the Indian ODI series, captain Upul Tharanga was suspended two ODIs due to slow over rate. Therefore, Chamara Kapugedera was appointed as the stand-in captain of those two ODIs. However, he aggravated a back injury during the third ODI and ruled out of the series. For the fourth ODI, Malinga was appointed stand-in captain. In the match, Malinga took his 300th ODI wicket by dismissing Virat Kohli. Despite his milestone, India scored 375 runs and Sri Lanka only managed to score 207 runs and lost the series 4–0. India won the fifth match of the series and whitewash Sri Lanka for the second consecutive time in a 5-match series.
Since his comeback, Malinga was not fully effective with the ball and also with the fielding. However, he did not announce an immediate retirement and said he wanted to play international cricket for Sri Lanka until 2019 Cricket World Cup. Since his return, Malinga averaging 62.30 for each of his 10 wickets, and going at six an over, Due to his ineffective bowling, Malinga was omitted from the ODI squad for 2017–18 Pakistan series in the UAE.
Due to his continuous injuries, he was not considered for the selection by the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2018 Nidahas Trophy. In the series, Sri Lanka suffered heavy losses against Bangladesh and omitted from the final as well. He was left out from team selection process in late 2017 when the sports ministry directly intervened into Sri Lanka cricket by introducing the minimum fitness standards. Malinga challenged the then sports minister Dayasiri Jayasekara regarding his exclusion from the team for lack of fitness levels and in retaliation Dayasiri used his authoritarian powers to sack Malinga from being selected to the national team for over a year.
Sri Lanka Cricket informed Malinga to play in the domestic competition and then he will selected for the upcoming international tours. But, due to coaching responsibilities in Mumbai Indians, Malinga also missed 2018 Super Provincial One Day Tournament. However, Malinga announced that he hope to join international squad for the South African limited over tour in Sri Lanka 2018. But he was not picked for both ODIs and T20Is.
He however continued to work on his fitness and bowling with his mentor Anusha Ramanayake and following an impressive domestic season he was subsequently recalled to the national team for the 2018 Asia Cup. Malinga was included in the squad for 2018 Asia Cup as the premium fast bowler with Suranga Lakmal. He played the opening game of the series with Bangladesh and took two wickets in the first over of the match. He finished the spell with 4 wickets for just 23 runs.
On 13 October 2018 against England in the second ODI of the series, Malinga took his 8th five-wicket haul. Four wickets of them were slow dipping yorkers, which credited as his best strength in the career. He finished five wickets for 44 runs, despite Sri Lanka lost the match by 31 runs in D/L method. During the match, he also completed 500 international wickets.