Aravinda de Silva

Deshabandu Pinnaduwage Aravinda de Silva (අරවින්ද ද සිල්වා,அரவிந்த டி சில்வா ; born 17 October 1965) is a former Sri Lankan cricketer and captain, Regarded as one of the best Sri Lankan cricketer, he played in the team as an all-rounder.

He made his Test match debut in 1984 at Lord's against England.

During the early part of his career he was known as a dashing but inconsistent batsman – he was given the nickname "Mad Max" for his tendency to get out to rash shots.

He later commented on his aggressive batting style: "That's my natural game – I don't want to change because I feel confident playing that way. If someone is capable of dominating the bowling, they should do it. It's the way I've been playing since I was a youngster."

A successful season playing first-class cricket for the English county Kent in 1995 marked a turning point in his career.

Following the Sri Lankan tour of New Zealand de Silva joined the English county side Kent in April 1995 on short notice after Kent's leading batsman of the previous season, Carl Hooper, left to join the West Indies team for the summer.

He was the third most prolific batsman of the County Championship in 1995 after Mark Ramprakash and Nasser Hussain with 1661 runs at an average of 59.32 and six centuries including the highest score of the season, 255.

He was also often called to perform as fifth or sixth bowler, a role where he proved to be relatively economic but an inefficient wicket-taker.

De Silva did not play in Kent's two last County Championship matches having left to join the Sri Lankan squad on their tour of Pakistan.

In the three-nation Champions Trophy tournament in Sharjah in October 1995 with Pakistan and West Indies each team ended up with two wins and two losses in the preliminary round-robin stage, and West Indies and Sri Lanka were selected to play in the final due to their higher run rates.

In the final Sri Lanka proved victorious by 50 runs.

de Silva ended up with a modest 117 runs at an average of 29.25 in five matches.

His batting form slumped lower in the three-test Series in Australia, where the Sri Lankan batsmen struggled with the bowling of Glenn McGrath, who took 21 wickets while de Silva managed 98 runs at an average of 16.33.

In the third test he acted as captain after the regular captain Arjuna Ranatunga pulled out due to finger injury.

The series was shrouded in controversy, as in the first Test Sri Lanka was first found guilty of ball-tampering only to be exonerated later by International Cricket Council, while in the second Test the Australian umpire Darrell Hair no-balled Sri Lankan bowler Muttiah Muralitharan seven times in just three overs for throwing.

Concurrently with the Test series Sri Lanka also participated in three-nation ODI series with Australia and West Indies.

In the seventh match of the tournament against West Indies Muralitharan was again called for throwing and did not play again in the ODI series.

The tournament was won by Australia, who beat Sri Lanka in both final matches, confirming their favourite position in the forthcoming ICC World Cup in the Indian sub-continent.

De Silva was a key member of the Sri Lankan team that won 1996 Cricket World Cup, where he scored a match winning century in the final, that brought Sri Lanka from underdog status to present-day form.

De Silva was instrumental in Sri Lanka's triumph in the 1996 Cricket World Cup where his unbeaten century and three wickets earned him the Man of the Match award in the final against Australia.

His other notable achievements include scoring a century in each innings of a Test match on two occasions (only bettered by India's Sunil Gavaskar, Australia's Ricky Ponting and David Warner, who each performed this feat three times).

He is the first man to score two unbeaten hundreds in a Test, where he scored unbeaten 138 and 103 against Pakistan in 1997.

Following his illustrious cricket career, de Silva came under fire with several accusations of match fixing, along with Arjuna Ranatunga, which he vehemently denied.

De Silva had his initial education at Isipathana College, Colombo before attending D. S. Senanayake College, Colombo.

One of these doubles was 138 and 105, both unbeaten, against Pakistan at Colombo's Sinhalese Sports Club in April 1997.

This made him the first, and so far only, player to score two unbeaten centuries in the same Test match.

As he had scored 168 in the second innings of the previous Test, he posted three hundreds in eight days.

He finished the year with 1,220 runs at 76.25.

Sri Lanka had embarrassingly lost a first-class match against Pakistan Cricket Board Patron's XI and the following first Test against Pakistan both by an innings.

He joined the team only few days before the second Test and was dismissed for a duck in the first innings; however, in Sri Lanka's second innings his third wicket stand of 176 runs with Chandika Hathurusingha helped to win the Test for Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka went on to win the third Test and clinch the Test series against Pakistan 2–1.

Sri Lanka also proved victorious with the same numbers in the subsequent three-match ODI-series against Pakistan, where de Silva was Sri Lanka's leading wicket-taker with five wickets at an average of 17.80.

He has held various posts in Sri Lankan Cricket after his retirement in 2003.

He was inducted into ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2023.

Aravinda is the only player to make a hundred and take three or more wickets in a World cup final.

On 28 July 2007 he made a one-off appearance for a friend for Dorset county league side Sherborne.

The season proved to be a mix of disappointment and success for Kent, as they finished last (18th) in County Championship with only three wins and four draws out of 17 matches played.

Their form in the 40-overs National Cricket League was much better, and they finished on top of the league table with 12 wins, four losses and one abandoned match.

In addition, Kent reached the final of Benson & Hedges Cup, where they lost to Lancashire by 35 runs despite de Silva's 112 runs.

Personally for de Silva, the time spent with Kent marked the turning point in his career.