Romesh Kaluwitharana

The pint-sized wicketkeeper-batsman, Romesh Kaluwitharana is a former Sri Lankan cricketer who was a pure entertainer who sent the crowd bustling with his attacking brand of cricket.

After coming through the grind of playing his fair share of First-Class cricket, Romesh burst onto the international scene with his thunderous century during his debut Test against Australia at SSC in 1992. Despite his thrill-a-minute hundred in his debut Test against a formidable attack, he found it hard to cement his place in the Sri Lankan set-up.

Popularly known as “Kalu”, he is often attributed as one of the key components of Sri Lanka’s successful campaign at the 1996 World Cup. However, he only scored 73 runs in six matches in the tournament. It was during the tour to Australia after the World Cup, where he had made an impact by scoring three fifties in a tri-series.

Unfortunately for him, even though he played international cricket for Sri Lanka until 2004, he was bound to struggle to keep his place in the side with stiff competition coming from a far better wicketkeeper-batsman, Kumar Sangakara. The Test against Pakistan at Karachi in October 2004 proved to be his last international game.

(As of April 2021)