Soft musician becomes hard hitter

Dilshan Munaweera

Full name: Dilshan Yasika Munaweera

Born: April 14, 1989, Colombo

Batting style: Right hand

Bowling style: Right are off spin

Major teams: Nalanda, Sebastianites SC,

Bloomfield, Sri Lanka under 19,

Sri Lanka Development Squad

First class debut: 2008

First class matches: 13, innings: 22, runs: 418,

highest score: 95,

average: 19.00, 50’s: 4

He had a great liking for music and immediately after leaving school he produced three original tracks and showed promise of turning out to be a successful musician.

But instead of continuing his career in music Dilshan Munaweera chose to become a cricketer and one of the hardest strikers of the ball in the domestic scene. Like his own music creations the twenty year old dashing right hander has his own style of batting although he is set to become the next Tillekeratne Dilshan of Sri Lanka cricket.

The former schoolboy of Nalanda College has already showed glimpse of his capabilities with an excellent run of success with the bat for his club Bloomfield in the recently concluded SLC under 23 tournament.

He is also fresh after a tremendous series in New Zealand with the Sri Lanka Development Squad where he emerged as the highest run getter for the side with a total of 271 runs.

The feature in his batting is the fact that he collects his runs at a brisk rate and as a result has missed out of some big scores on several occasions. But he does not mind in throwing his wicket away because he believes that the ball is meant to be hit and to make the maximum.

This was quite evident in New Zealand where he came close of reaching the three figure mark twice against the Under 19 team and also against the Canterberrey side which included a couple of former New Zealand national players. Munaweera’s next assignment will be the South Asian Games Twenty20 tournament which will be staged in Dhaka, Bangladesh from January 29.

The shortest version of the game seems to be ideal for Munaweera who likes to canter the bowling from the very beginning.

Looking back at some of his outstanding batting it is very much clear that he is an aggressive batsman who likes to dominate the bowling throughout his innings. The sparkling knock of 172 which he compiled for Bloomfield against Saracens SC in the SLC under 23 tournament is a classic example.

Munaweera was at his best as he plundered the bowling to all corners of the ground while hoisting eleven sixes in addition to stroking the same number of boundaries.

He compiled a total of five centuries altogether and went on to win the award for the Best Batsman and the Man of the Series award as well.

This is his natural talent and has been an attacking batsman even from his schooldays.

In his first Big Match for Nalanda College he performed a unique feat hoisting four successive sixes off Malith Gunatilleke who incidentally went on to win the best bowlers award and the Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year award in the same year. Munaweera altogether clobbered six sixes and narrowly missed out the chance of scoring the fastest half century in the Big Match series having raced to a sparkling 49 from just 23 deliveries. Overall he played in three Big Matches and hit a top score of 58 in his final appearance.

Munaweera of course joined Nalanda College from grade six through a scholarship having done his early education at Prince of Wales College Moratuwa. He learnt the basics of the game at Campbell Place under the guidance of Leslie Narangoda, Jayantha Seneviratne, Tharanga Dhammika and Hemantha Devapriya.

But it was while representing the Sri Lanka Under-19 team that Munaweera really matured into a fine opening batsman under the supervision of Sumithra Warnakulasuriya, Roger Wijesuriya and former Sri Lanka batting legend Aravinda de Silva.

In fact one of his better innings came at the previous Under 19 World Cup in Malaysia where he hammered a brisk 43 to fashion a historic victory against Australia.

Munaweera had the honour of representing Bloomfield in the SLC under 23 division one tournament while still as a schoolboy. Incidentally it was while playing for Bloomfield that he had the opportunity of opening the batting after having started his career as a middle order batsman.

His Bloomfield coach Hemantha Alles and skipper Yohan de Silva certainly encouraged him to open the batting which was no doubt a tough task at the beginning. However as time passed Munaweera felt that opening the innings was much easier for him as it gave plenty of options and the liberty to punish the bowling. However all his coaches have allowed him to continue with his own batting style which has worked well in the recent past.

Even then Munaweera believes that he will need to pay more attention about his shot selection if he is to make vast strides in the international arena.

His prime goal is of course to make it to the Sri Lanka Twenty20 team this year and probably into the one day squad within the next couple of seasons. Dilshan of course hails from a cricketing background where his father Sudath Munaweera represented Tamil Union and Colts Cricket Club with distinction.