Picture Credit: Twitter
Veteran Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga might have announced his retirement from all forms of cricket but his legacy lives on. The right-pacer was as much about his bowling as about his bowling action. His unique throw-down method with a singly action not only made lives difficult for batters, in addition, the balls were also pitched in areas exactly where Malinga would have wanted it to pitch more often than not, which made him one of the world's best, especially in limited-overs cricket.
However, seems like there is another Malinga in the making. The youngster announced his arrival at the world stage in the U-19 Asia Cup match between Sri Lanka and UAE. The bowler is none other than Matheesha Pathirana who was absolutely brilliant in the game and highlights of his fiery spell have gone viral on the internet. As is evident, much like Malinga, Pathirana is a right-arm pacer and has a similar slingy action.
In his spell of 2 wickets for 7 runs in 3 overs, Pathirana's victims were both clean bowled. In the video, Pathirana could even be seen bowling yorkers something which Malinga made his most lethal weapon.
Check out the video of his bowling here:
Sri Lanka U-19s win by 274 runs in 50-over contest
Eventually, it was all too easy for Sri Lanka U-19s against Kuwait in this 50-overs contest. The team batted first and scored a massive 323/5 with Pawan Pathiraja top-scoring with 86 runs from 72 balls. Pathiraja, was also adjudged as the Player of the Match, scored 11 boundaries in this innings but did not score a single six.
Apart from him, openers Chamindu Wickramasinghe and Shevon Daniel also scored 54 runs each while Ranuda Somarathne remained unbeaten on 60 from 57 balls. All the Sri Lankan batters got a start which was another real positive from their innings.
Habier Ali and Henry Thomas scalped 2 wickets each for Kuwait with the latter being a little expensive. Abdullah Zaheer was the only other wicket-taker for the team.
In response, Sri Lanka bundled out Kuwait for just 49 runs and other than Pathirana it was Dunith Wellalage who was the pick of the bowlers as he scalped 4 wickets for 2 runs in 9 deliveries. Sadisha Rajapaksa also scalped 3 wickets for 4 runs in 5 overs.