Birthday Special: Arjuna Ranatunga – Sri Lanka’s only World Cup-winning captain & a gritty batsman

An aggressive and innovative mass leader, Arjuna Ranatunga was solely responsible for lifting Sri Lanka from the underdog status to that of world champions in 1996. Ranatunga’s leadership was the main factor behind the island nation dominating cricket in the 1990s. Although Arjuna is remembered for the skipper that he was, he was an iconic batsman too.

Ranatunga was drafted into the Sri Lankan national team in 1981 and was a part of Sri Lanka’s maiden Test match against England at Colombo’s P. Sara Oval in 1982. He scored a fifty in the first innings but the visitors won the match by seven wickets. Owing to his ability to play fine strokes, the batsman was successful in hiding his inability to run between the wickets.

Ranatunga was the thread that had kept the entire Lankan team together till 1999. He was Sri Lanka’s second-youngest player to feature in an ODI at the age of 18 years, 75 days. Additionally, he is the second youngest Sri Lankan to feature in a Test at the age of 18 years, 78 days. He made his Test captaincy debut at the age of 26 years, 7 days. He was then their youngest Test captain only to be surpassed by Angelo Mathews (25y 279d) and Aravinda de Silva (25y 309d).

Influential captain

Ranatunga led Sri Lanka in 249 internationals and the team registered victory in 101 of them. Also, under his leadership, the island nation played 193 ODIs, winning 89 – the most for Sri Lanka under any captain. In his glorious international career, Arjuna played 93 Tests and 269 ODIs, scoring 5105 and 7456 runs at an average of 35.7 and 35.8 respectively.

As Arjuna helped Sri Lanka lift their maiden ICC World Cup in 1996, he became a household name in the country and was widely hailed for his leadership skills. However, his career abruptly came to an end in 2001. Ranatunga was sacked as a captain in 1999 after he failed to repeat the heroics of 1996 World Cup. Following this, he featured in Sri Lanka’s 100th Test match, which turned out to be his last Test game.

Ironically, the year (1999) Ranatunga decided to bid adieu to the gentleman’s game, he was named in the prestigious list of five Wisden Cricketers of that year.