Aravinda De Silva

Pinnaduwage Aravinda de Silva is regarded as one of the finest players to have played the game. He played for the Sri Lanka national cricket team. He was a right-handed batsman and a right-handed off-break bowler.

De Silva was nicknamed “Mad Max” for his rash and vibrant batting style. He started his career by playing for Kent at county cricket matches in England. De Silva has played a total of 15,000 first class matches with a batting average of 48.38 and a bowling average of 29.17. He has also played 12,095 List A matches with 36.32 as his batting average.

Sri Lanka selected De Silva for the national team in 1984 for a match against New Zealand. He performed marvelously while playing for Sri Lanka. The team successfully grabbed several test series titles with De Silva as the leading scorer and wicket taker. De Silva was a part of the team that went in to play the 1996 World Cup. Sri Lanka emerged victorious and clinched the title of world champions at the tournament.

De Silva played a total of 93 test matches and 308 one-day internationals. His batting average is recorded as 42.97 for tests and 34.90 for ODI matches. He also performed well as a bowler with averages of 41.65 for tests and 39.40 for ODIs.

De Silva has scored several match-winning centuries for Sri Lanka. He was named man-of-the-match for 11 test matches and also was man-of-the-series for 4 test series. De Silva was named as the man-of-the-match on 30 occasions and was the man-of the-series for 3 ODI series. De Silva also captained his national team for 18 one-day-international matches. He led the team to 5 victories and 1 draw. He played his last ODI match in 2003 against Australia.

Career Highlights

In 1996, Wisden selected De Silva as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year.

De Silva is listed 6 times in the list of top 100 batting performances compiled by Wisden.

Ranked 82nd in the Wisden top 100 bowling chart listing the top bowlers from around the world.