Upul Tharanga Profile by CricketArchive

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Player:

WU Tharanga

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DateLine: 20th February 2007

 

He is one of the brightest young stars on the Sri Lankan cricket firmament. An aggressive left handed opening batsman Upul Tharanga is an exciting prospect as his ODI figures will prove. At the end of the Champions Trophy in India in 2006 he had six hundreds in 35 matches at a strike rate of over 76. A free and natural striker of the ball Tharanga in the Jayasuriya mould goes for the bowling from the very start. His hand-eye co-ordination and prodigious gifts has helped him to combat the moving delivery, the ball cut off the seam and even the fastest of bowlers with more than a degree of success. Astonishingly he has followed this approach even in Tests and his touch has not deserted him as the statistics will confirm. Coming up through the ranks Tharanga played for the Under-15, Under-17 and Under-19 teams and first attracted attention during the Under-19 World Cup in 2004 when he hit 117 against South Africa and followed it up with 61 off 42 balls against India. A successful tour to Pakistan with the Under-19 team followed after which he played for the Sri Lanka A team. His career really took off on the tour of England in 2006 with a splendid century at Lord’s in the first match of Sri Lanka’s 5-0 whitewash. He has never looked back since and has gone from strength to strength confirming of this being successive centuries in the Champions Trophy in India. His formidable opening partnership with Jayasuriya made sure that Sri Lanka reached the finals of the 2007 World Cup. But subsequent drop in form saw him out of the Sri Lankan team.