Paranavithana to end First Class career

by Rex Clementine

In the era of David Warner, Virender Sehwag and Sanath Jayasuriya as Test match openers, Sri Lanka had an old fashioned opening batsman in Tharanga Paranavithana. His Strike Rate of 41 in Tests bears witness for that. The left-handed batsman who represented Sri Lanka in 32 Test matches will end his First Class career today, the last day of the three day encounter between Tamil Union and Negombo CC at Colts grounds.

Paranavithana made his First Class debut nearly 20 year ago and scored almost 15,000 runs. He also scored 40 hundreds in First Class cricket, two of which came in Test matches.

Paranavithana is a player to emerge from outstations with Kegalle being his hometown. Consistent scores in domestic cricket for Sinhalese Sports Club earned him a place in Sri Lanka ‘A’ and after a successful tour of South Africa in 2008 then ‘A’ team coach Chandika Hathurusingha earmarked him as a future Test match cricketer.

Paranavithana made his debut in Pakistan in 2009. He picked up a golden duck in the first innings and was run out in the second innings. Then during the second Test match in Lahore, he was severely wounded after terrorists attacked the Sri Lankan team bus.

Although he scored only two Test hundreds, those hundreds came in the space of eight days – both against India. The first hundred in Galle gave Sri Lanka a thrilling win. That was also Muttiah Muralitharan’s farewell Test match.

Interestingly, he had a shirt number that many players don’t want to associate in cricket – 111.

Paranavithana represented SSC earlier on in his career but towards the tail end shifted to Tamil Union. He retires at 38 having played over 220 First Class games.

An excellent slip fielder, Paranavithana was highly rated by former captain Kumar Sangakkara as an excellent team player. He also looked calm on the field and the pressures and demands of international cricket never had a toll on him.

Some of his team mates believe that post retirement he will take up politics.