Udawatte

From being touted as the next Sanath Jayasuriya to obscurity, life has been a bumpy ride for Mahela Udawatte. For someone who plays no-holds barred cricket, initiation and graduation to international cricket was supposed to be a fairy-tale but it ended up as a nightmare. The emergence of Upul Tharanga as a more lucrative option and the promotion of Dilshan as an opener also did not help the cause of Udawatte.

A hard hitting left-handed batsman who opens the batting and can also bowl some useful off-breaks, Mahela started his career with Ananda College but did not get much recognition even though he scored over 1000 runs in a single year before making his first-class debut. Things changed when he joined Chilaw Marians SC after school and made his debut for them in 2005. There he was promoted to open the batting and did not disappoint as he thrashed 3 hundreds in 5 matches to earn a place in the Development Squad. He was also selected for the A squad for the tour of England.

His consistent performances for the A side meant, the southpaw was inching closer to a national cap, In 2006-07, Sri Lanka A participated in the Duleep Trophy and Mahela was a part of it. A string of good performances led to him being called-up for the national side for the tour of West Indies in 2008 to be a part of the ODI side. He did not get off to a perfect start as he scored a duck in his first innings but made up for it in the third game with a patient 73. He followed that fifty with another one against UAE in the Asia cup in 2008 in the absence of Sanath Jayasuriya. However, things started to go downhill from then on as he failed on the tour of Zimbabwe where he scored only 60 runs in 4 games. In T20Is, Udawatte played some useful knocks but nothing significant.

But after that he was ignored for good 8 years as he made his comeback into the Lankan T20I team in 2017 for a tour to UAE for three T20Is. He had scores of 8,0 and 11 and once again failed to grab his chances. But a good domestic season in 2018 and an injury to Dimuth Karunaratne meant Mahela Udawatte got another lifeline as he was picked for three Tests against the Windies in the Caribbean.