Upul Tharanga

Upul Tharanga carried tons of flair and swaggers whenever he donned his Sri Lankan jersey. A top-order left-handed batsman whose style and charisma was second to none. Tharanga provided his illustrious company to Tillakaratne Dilshan, post-Sanath Jayasuriya's retirement in the ODI format but underachieved in the other formats of the game. 

The southpaw was a product of age-group cricket who represented the Islanders during the 2004 U-19 World Cup. He could play all the strokes and his wicket-keeping skill was an added feather. Tharanga was fast-tracked into the national side in 2005 and the southpaw didn’t take too long to impress the selectors. 

A 20-year-old Tharanga scored his maiden century in his debut season and then cemented himself in a star-studded batting lineup when the southpaw smashed three more tons against New Zealand and England in the 2006 season. ODI’s success led to a Test call-up and later was selected for the World Cup of 2007. Although, an early success soon changed into a lean patch for the promising youngster. 

Until 2011, Tharanga could not convert his starts into a hundred, though he flourished at the World Cup with scores of 133 and 102* against Zimbabwe and England respectively. The southpaw finished the event as Sri Lanka’s third-highest run-getter with 395 runs at 56.42. However, another downfall was awaiting. After the World Cup, the Sri Lankan failed a drug test that led to a three-month suspension. 

Post the ban, inconsistency became Tharanga’s closest friend as he couldn’t convert starts into match-winning knocks. From 2013 till his retirement, the talented batsman could only register five international hundreds, which made him an irregular feature of the Sri Lankan team. Tharanga last played an international game in 2019 on the tour of South Africa, before he retired from the highest level in 2021. 

(As of April 2021)