Chanaka Welegedara: Sri Lanka's Bowler For The Future
Chanaka Welegedara’s absence from the second Test match in the ongoing series between India and Sri Lanka in cricket is baffling. For a bowler who has undergone the grind and performed to the best of the abilities in the batting-friendly conditions, one would have expected his selection to be a foregone conclusion.
Welegedara started playing cricket at the age of 17, and he represented his college cricket team in Matale. He headed to Colombo soon afterwards following his performance in the provincial matches. It was at the behest of bowling expert Daryl Foster that he was selected as one of the 15 probable players for the Sri Lankan Pace Academy in 2000. After a brief stint at the Sri Lankan Pace Academy, he went to the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai to enhance his skills further, under the guidance of Dennis Lillee.
In the 2002-03 Premier League title, Welegedara represented Moors SC. He captured 34 wickets in the tournament, striking at an average of 24.14 for his side, thus paving the way for Moors SC to the Premier league title. His career best performance came afterwards against the Colombo Cricket Club when he notched up nine wickets and led his team Moors SC to a comprehensive ten-wicket win.
On his tour with the Sri Lanka Academy side Sharjah, he claimed seven wickets against the UAE. This performance of his earned him a place on the Sri Lanka A team.
Welegedera suffered a setback early in his career when he was forced out of cricket due to an ankle injury for a year and a half. However, that hardly deterred him from continuing to aspire to play at the international level.
In his comeback from the injury, his performance’s in the first class cricket was impressive. He took four wickets in his debut first class match, which was instrumental in getting him noticed. Following a good run at the first class level, he was recalled for the Sri Lanka A squad in the 2007 tour against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747 at home.
Having a healthy bowling average in the first class level, he was on the radar of the national selectors. On December 18th 2007, he made his Test debut for the Sri-Lankan national side against England in the third Test played at Galle. He picked a couple of wickets in each innings, which included the prize-wicket of Paul Collinwood in the first innings and the openers Michael Vaughan and Alastair Cook in the second.
Thereafter, he was selected for Sri Lanka’s tour of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 in 2008, but did not get to play a single match and had to wait until November 2009 for Sri Lanka’s tour of India to play in the second Test match of his career.
In this game against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Rahul-c83321 Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, and returned with figures of 4 for 87 at the end of first innings. This was a remarkable performance given that he was in the Test squad of Sri-Lanka after a gap of two years.
Following his good show against India in the test series, he was included in the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Virat-Kohli-c95424.
His amazing performances in the last couple of years also ensured that he had edged out Nuwan Kulasekara and Thilan Thushara as the preferred option for the ongoing Indian tour of Sri Lanka. It was a strange sight to see him pick up the wicket of Sehwag in both the innings of the game and yet, not find a place in the side in the second Test match.
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