Lasith Malinga

Separamadu Lasith Malinga (සෙපරමාදු ලසිත් මාලිංග;லசித் மாலிங்க;born 28 August 1983) is a Sri Lankan former cricketer who is widely regarded as one of the greatest limited overs bowlers of all time.

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 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.

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 (Darren Lehmann twice, Adam Gilchrist, Damien Martyn, Shane Warne and Michael Kasprowicz) 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.

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 140 and 150 km/h and sometimes slightly faster.

As time went by he started to lose pace, clocking around 130 and 140 km/h.

His slower off cutter was also menacing.

He married Tanya Perera in 2010.

On 22 April 2011, he announced his retirement from Test cricket.

He has been named as the official event ambassador for the World Twenty20 Championships by ICC.

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.

Malinga announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on 14 September 2021 and migrated to Melbourne.

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 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.

Malinga took a hat-trick to become the first bowler to claim two T20I hat-tricks, and four wickets in four balls, in the third over of his spell, while becoming the second bowler in the world to take four wickets in four consecutive balls in T20I history after Rashid Khan during the process.

In January 2021, he retired from T20 franchise cricket.

In September 2021, Malinga announced his retirement from all forms of cricket.

Malinga grew up in modest circumstances in Rathgama, a coastal village situated 12 km 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.