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Sri Lanka’s Asela Gunaratne was ‘confident’ but ‘reluctant’ as student, says coach Aubrey Kurrupu

The coach had his inhibitions regarding his student as he thought Gunaratne’s approach to cricket was only suited to the five-day game, but now he believes that he is as good in all three formats.

Asela
In the recently-concluded T20 series in Australia, Asela Gunaratne played a crucial role to give his team a 2-1 win © AFP

Sri Lankan batsman Asela Gunaratne is making waves in the international cricket with impressive debuts in both T20I and Test cricket last year but his school coach Aubrey Kurrupu describes him as always being confident but bit of a reluctant cricketer in his youth. Kurrupu, himself a cricketer of the pre-Test era, coached Gunaratne the basics of the game and admitted that though he had pinned the batsman as a long format player, he has proved him wrong by playing shorter formats too. “He batted at No. 4 at school and bowled medium pace. From what I’ve seen of him lately, he has worked hard at his game to attain the level he has and he now bowls cutters,” Kurrupu said.

Gunaratne started playing serious cricket from the age of 16. He represented his school, Rahula College, Kandy, by being the first ever player from the same to have participated in an international game. He went on to play for the first XI from 2003-04 and 2005-06, and captained in the final year. Though he was solid, he never made enough runs or took enough wickets with his right arm medium pace and always seemed to have missed a green signal from the national selectors, according to ESPNCricinfo.

“It was not that he was not interested in cricket, he used to play in the paddy fields a lot, but he never pushed himself to attain goals,” Kuruppu said. The coach had his inhibitions regarding his student as he thought Gunaratne’s approach to cricket was only suited to the five-day game, but now he believes that he is as good in all three formats. “The first match he played against Trinity [College], I sent him at No. 9 and he made 12. In the next game against St Aloysius Ratnapura I was short of an opener and I promoted him up the order. He responded with a magnificent 158,” he reminisces.

After his stints in school, Kurrupu got Gunaratne to play for his former club Saracens CC in the division III tournament, where he scored a brilliant hundred in his first match itself. He went on to join the Sri Lankan Army and played there with the likes of cricket legends like Ajantha Mendis and Seekkuge Prassana, which Kurruppu also believes is the reason that Gunaratne’s cricketing skills improved greatly.

The 31-year-old cricketer scored a fifty on his Test debut and a maiden hundred in the next Test, making a mark in international cricket on the tour to Zimbabwe, last October. On the recent tour to South Africa, Gunaratne scored his maiden One-Day-International (ODI) hundred in the fifth match of the series, and in the recently-concluded T20 series in Australia, he played a crucial role to give his team a 2-1 win.

In the recently-concluded T20 series in Australia, he played two eye-catching innings to give his team a 2-1 win — their third successive T20 series victory Down Under. In the first match at Melbourne, Gunaratne smacked 7 fours in 52 runs and Sri Lanka won by 5 wickets with in a thriller. In the second match at Geelong, he made a remarkable heist with 84 not out, studded with 6 fours and 5 sixes and single-handedly led to team to victory as Sri Lanka won by 2 wickets. FULL CRICKET SCORECARD: Australia vs Sri Lanka, 3rd T20I at Adelaide

“He has been a consistent run-scorer in domestic cricket for Army, getting 700-800 runs regularly each season, but he never got the opportunity to showcase his talent at a higher level until now. Once he gets going there is no stopping him,” Kurrupu comments fondly on what lies ahead for his student.

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