Biography of Aravinda De Silva

Aravinda De Silva (born 17 October 1965) was a Sri Lankan cricketer, and is considered one of the finest batsmen ever produced by the country. He made his Test match debut in 1984 at Lord’s against England. During the early part of his career de Silva was known as a dashing, if inconsistent, stroke-maker, but a successful season playing First Class cricket for English county Kent in 1995 marked a turning point in his career. He was instrumental in Sri Lanka’s triumph in the 1996 Cricket World Cup where his unbeaten century and three wickets earned him the Man of the Match award in the final against Australia. His other notable achievements include scoring a century in each innings of a Test match on two separate occasions (only bettered by India’s Sunil Gavaskar who performed this feat three times), and scoring over 1000 Test runs in a calendar year in 1997. De Silva had the distinction of scoring a double century in his final Test innings and picking up a wicket with his final delivery in Test cricket (against Bangladesh in 2002), and he retired – with a place in cricket’s history secure – from all International Cricket after the World Cup in 2002.