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• Rangana Herath : Spinning the balls of Success

Rangana Herath : Spinning the balls of Success

- Venkat

The story of this man goes that he was picked by the Sri Lankan team out of nowhere during the 1999 home series against the Aussies due to their weakness against some quality spin bowling. Rangana Herath was discovered by the Sri Lankan selectors when he was playing for Kurunegala CC, a not-so-fancied first class team, in the Premier League (as they call it in Sri Lanka) and decided to invest in this young man who was then aged 18. Today, five years after making his test debut for Sri Lanka, Rangana Herath has ascended himself to take up the challenge of being Sri Lanka's premier spinner in the absence of the great Muttiah Muralitharan. In fact, Rangana is the first and only player to have represented Sri Lanka from the town of Kurunegala, which is on the way between Colombo and Anuradhapura.

After making his first class debut for Kurunegala Youth Cricket Club in 1996, this talented left arm spinner has made rapid strides in his cricketing career. After tasting some success in Kurunegala, Herath decided to get going and made a decisive career move to Moors Cricket Club, which boasts of producing Chaminda Vaas. Since his arrival at Moors, his career took off from nowhere to being one of the finest second rung spinners in the country. Rangana, like many other modern day left arm spinners uses flight and loop as a weapon to deceive and then defeat the batsmen. Besides, he has a mystery ball which he bowls with an unorthodox bent finger grip sending the ball spinning in the opposite direction, something that for sure bamboozled the Aussies to a large extent in 1999. He also has a distinct version of the arm ball, which makes him more effective and potent on any wicket. After his debut against Australia in 1999, he was reduced to playing first class cricket for the Moors and became a regular in the Sri Lanka 'A' team. Read full article...

 

Statistics of Rangana Herath's Career :

Test Matches : Batting and Fielding

 
    M    I    NO  Runs   HS     Ave     SR   100  50   Ct  St
   13   17     3   136   33*   9.71   36.26   0    0    2   0

  Balls      M     R     W    Ave    BBI   5  10    SR    Econ
   2677     93   1303   35  37.22   4-38   0   0  76.48   2.92

    M    I   NO  Runs   HS    Ave    SR   100  50  Ct  St
    6    1    1   0     0*     -      -    0    0   3   0

  Balls     M    R     W    Ave    BBI    4w  5w   SR    Econ
   234      2   149    5  29.80   3-28     0   0  46.80  3.82