Vishwa Fernando

A steamy quick left-arm pacer, Vishwa Fernando, hailing from Colombo is a Sri Lankan cricketer who plays all forms of the sport. Fernando is well known for skiddy action, accuracy, and raw pace. The southpaw made a quick name for himself during his maiden domestic season where he snapped 26 wickets to grab all the eyeballs on him. 

Fernando made his first-class debut in 2012 against the highly prolific Colts Cricket Club and took two wickets on his debut. Later that year, he made his maiden List-A against Sri Lankan Army Sports Club, he went wicketless but his figures couldn’t explain his impact. The left-arm quick made an immediate impact in the domestic circuit with his absolute pace and ended the season with 26 wickets in the Premier League Tournament. 

However, with speedsters likes Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Kulasekara, and Nuwan Pradeep already performing at the highest level, Fernando had to wait a little longer. The southpaw got his maiden Test call-up in 2014 for the tour of UAE, but he wasn’t lucky enough to get his Test cap then and went back to grind. He took 40 wickets in the 2014 First-class season and impressed all the pundits with his average of 22.97. 

Fernando made his International debut in the Galle Test against Australia in 2016, on a spin favouring conditions where the spinners took 19 wickets and unfortunately he could only grab a solitary wicket. Next year in August against India at Dambulla and went wicketless as he got under the Dhawan-Kohli assault. A couple of months later, he was got his chance to play the shortest format and yet again he didn’t fail to grab a wicket. 

In 2019, Fernando got his career-defining moment when he was involved in a match-winning partnership of 78 runs with Kusal Perera for the last wicket to help his national side pull off an unthinkable win against South Africa in Durban. In the same very Test, the pacer took his maiden five-wicket haul and finished the game with figures of 8 for 133. 

Two years later, he again took another five-wicket haul against South Africa at Johannesburg, but this one came in a losing cause. Fernando might haven’t performed as per his true potential but he has a calm head on his shoulders with pace in his battery, hence, if Sri Lanka Cricket keeps Fernando in a good state, he could well be a real force in all the formats.