Malinda Pushpakumara

A canny left-arm spinner with dangerous variations and a voracious appetite for wickets, Malinda Pushpakumara lorded it over Sri Lanka's domestic cricket for well over a decade. For much of his career, first-class tracks have been heavily stacked in favour of spinners. Even so, Pushpakumara's consistency has been unparalleled. He began to top the wicket-takers charts in the country's premier club tournament in 2012-13, and has since finished top wicket-taker on several occasions, including in 2014-15, 2016-17, 2018-19 and most recently in the Major League Tournament in 2023-24. Even in the years that he did not finish with his customary 70-plus wickets, he was among first-class cricket's most prized assets in Sri Lanka. Over more than a decade of dominance, he has amassed over 900 first-class wickets, at an average of less than 20.

Through sheer volume of wickets, Pushpakumara earned a place in the Sri Lanka Test side in 2017, but his stay there was short-lived, with him having played the last of his four Tests in late 2018. The view that coalesced among the selectors was that what had worked for him in domestic cricket was not quite what was required at international level, though Pushpakumara's average of 37.14 was decent for a bowler just starting out in Tests. In any case, he would have had more Test opportunities had some of his best years not overlapped with Rangana Herath's.

Though not quite as prolific in white-ball cricket, Pushpakumara has been an effective limited-overs spinner as well, with an excellent List A average and economy rate to recommend him. He played two ODIs for Sri Lanka in 2017, and took one wicket.

Having begun his career at Lumbini College, Colombo, Pushpakumara had also played for Sri Lanka's Under-19 side in 2005, in a triangular tournament featuring England and Bangladesh. Later, after coming of age at the first-class level, he also played for Sri Lanka A with some success, against the likes of South Africa A, New Zealand A and West Indies A.
Andrew Fidel Fernando