International Cricket Contest 2020 || My Favorite Bowler || Lasith Malinga

Is there anyone in our world of cricket community, who doesn’t know his name? I bet there isn’t. This man influenced that much in the international cricket. If you love him, you should have tried his action at least for one time.

So, I’ll talk about him as my favourite baller. Thanks @mdshanto for organizing this contest.
You know I’m such a huge fan of cricket since childhood. When it comes to balling, lot of names of legends continuously comes in to my mind. Murali, Vaas, Rangana Herath, Kulasekara from Sri Lanka, Brett lee, Warne, Mcgrathe, Stark, Warne from Aus, Wasim Akram, Akthar, Afridi from Pak, Bumrah from India, Sakib from Bangladesh. Boy, this could take a while.

Among them I like Malinga the most. Maybe it’s because I watched him playing from the debut to retirement, or his unique style, hair, toe crushing yokers, or crazy temper at the middle of the game.

Childhood

Separamadu Lasith Malinga was born on 28 August 1983 in Galle, Sri Lanka. For secondary education he went to the Vidyartha collage where he started his Cricket career, then to Mahinda college which was the turning point of his life.

Former Sri Lankan pacer Champaka Ramanyake was the mentor of him who created the path for his success after identifying his talent.

International career

He made his Test debut on 1 July 2004 against Australia at Marrara Oval in Darwin. Yeah from the first match he surprised the legendary Aussie team taking six wickets. Then he marked his name as a regular bowler of the squad. The below chart shows his statistics as a bowler.

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Competition	Test	ODI	T20I
Debut	2004 vs Australia	2004 vs UAE	2006 vs England
Matches	30	226	83
Balls bowled	5,209	10,936	1,781
Wickets	101	338	107
Bowling average	33.15	28.87	20.36
5 wickets in innings	3	8	2
Best bowling	5/50	6/38	6/17

Do you remember the consecutive 4 wickets he was taken against South Africa in 2007 World Cup? That was the first time in the Cricket history. Then his hunt for hattricks was started. The whole world started to talk about him. He was named in the 'Team of the Tournament' by Cricinfo for the 2007, 2011 World Cup.

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"Bowling Style

Malinga was so much popular for his unique bowling style. It is similar to slinging which result his nick name. It was a round-arm bowling action, where his arm almost horizontal when releasing the ball. And he has a great variation of speed. Batsmen were confused with the well-directed bouncer as well as slow cutter ball. But his toe crusher yorker was the special. He is an artist of it.

Here is a compilation of his wickets.

The king of yokers...

T20 franchise career

Malinga has played for IPL from the start in 2008 for Mumbai Indians. Since then he was a main weapon in MI and he showed his worth continuously. He is the leading wicket taker for IPL. And this helped a lot to make a huge fan base as well as polish his talent. I thin you can remember last year his performance at the final against CSK.

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On the occasion of the 10-year anniversary of IPL, he was also named in the all-time Cricinfo IPL XI.

Apart from that, he has played around the world for different leagues like Australian Big Bash League, Caribbean premier league, T10 league etc.

Retirement

ODI - On 26 July 2019, against Bangladesh at R Premadasa Stadium
Test - on 22 April 2011
T20 – He announced that, he would retire after next year world cup

Records and Acievements"
Only bowler to take two four wicket hauls in consecutive balls in international cricket (v. South Africa March 2007 and New Zealand 2019)

First bowler to take five hat-tricks across all formats of international cricket

First bowler to take 100 T20I wickets

Highest ninth wicket partnership in an ODI: 132 runs with Angelo Matthews against Australia in 2010

Ninth-highest wicket taker in ODI

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So, that’s it of my post today. Hope you will enjoy it.

If you also a fan of Mali please be kind to share your favourite memory of him in the comment section.

Thank you!
Best Regareds