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Former Sri Lankan Captain Marvan Atapattu has announced his retirement from International Cricket. The right hander who was one of the very few Sri Lankan batsmen to come good with the bat on this Australian tour surprised many with his decision which was revealed through a letter to the Sri Lanka Cricket Chief Executive Duleep Mendis.

Atapattu's career this season has been highly controversial after his differences with the National Selection Committee. Atapattu got selected in the Test Squad for the just concluded Australian tour after interference from the Sports Ministry. Ridiculing the Selectors, Marvan went onto bat in all the four test innings without any real struggle proving everyone that he still had plenty of class left. He had scores of 51, 16, 25 and in his last innings a polished 80 in the two tests against Australia which were not outstanding performances but atleast leaps and bounds better than most of his colleagues'. Atapattu's batting looked good although he was out of Test Cricket for more than two years!

Atapattu was in the news for the wrong reasons during the second test at Hobart. At the end of the third day's play, Marvan made a bold statement during a press conference in which he had called the Selectors a set of muppets headed by a joker. Marvan was supposed to confront a disciplinary committee for his open criticism of the Selection Committee back home before the England Series but his decision to quit from International Cricket may have avoided that. Atapattu is most likely to play club cricket in Australia, he could be one of the commentators for the February Tri-Series which features Australia, India and Sri Lanka and it is also speculated that he will be joining the rebel Indian Cricket League.

Marvan's International Career has been full of extreme highs and lows. He was lucky to survive 17 years in International Cricket after a disastrous start which included quite a few ducks and single digit scores. It was the backing of the then Captain Arjuna Ranatunga and the Selectors that helped Atapattu to realize his true potential at the top. Atapattu has a phenomenal six double centuries in the 90 Tests he has played. All in all, he was a very steady top order batsman for Sri Lanka averaging nearly 40 and getting 16 hundreds. He has 5502 runs in Test Cricket. In the shorter version, he has an average of 37.57 with 8529 runs in 268 ODIS with 11 hundreds and as many as 59 fifties.

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