Tillakaratne Dilshan

Tillakaratne Dilshan

Personal information
Full name	Tillakaratne Mudiyanselage Dilshan
Born	14 October 1976 (1976-10-14) Kalutara, Sri Lanka
Batting style	Right-handed
Bowling style	Right arm off spin
Role	Batsman
International information
National side	Sri Lanka
Test debut (cap 80)	18 November 1999 v Zimbabwe
Last Test	6 January 2012 v South Africa
ODI debut (cap 102)	11 December 1999 v Zimbabwe
Last ODI	22 January 2012 v South Africa
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1996–1997	Kalutara Town Club
1997–1998	Singha Sports Club
1998–2000	Sebastianites C&AC
2000–present	Bloomfield C&AC
2007–present	Basnahira South
2008–2010	Delhi Daredevils
2011–present	Royal Challengers Bangalore
Career statistics
Competition	Test	ODI	FC	LA
Matches	77	231	215	320
Runs scored	4,662	6,259	12,702	9,284
Batting average	40.89	35.56	38.84	37.58
100s/50s	12/20	11/26	33/54	17/46
Top score	193	160*	200*	188
Balls bowled	2,385	3,611	5,141	4,989
Wickets	29	65	73	100
Bowling average	41.03	44.53	34.52	38.94
5 wickets in innings	0	0	1	0
10 wickets in match	0	n/a	0	n/a
Best bowling	4/10	4/4	5/49	4/4
Catches/stumpings	78/–	90/1	342/23	168/8
Source: Cricinfo, 23 January 2012

Tillakaratne Mudiyanselage Dilshan (Sinhala: තිලකරත්න මුදියන්සේලාගේ දිල්ෂාන්) born October 14, 1976 in Kalutara, Sri Lanka is a Sri Lankan cricketer and former captain of the Sri Lanka national cricket team. He has been a member of the team since November 1999, and was also known as Tuwan Mohammad Dilshan. He is an aggressive right-hand batsman and also a capable in spin bowling, his off breaks are mostly used in the one-day arena. Dilshan won the award of Twenty20 International Performance of the Year at the 2009 ICC Awards for his 96 off 57 balls against West Indies in the semi-final of the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 in England. He also won man of the series trophy for his indiviual batting performances in the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 tournament.

Personal life

Dilshan was born to a Malay father and a Sinhalese mother. He converted from Muslim to Buddhism at the age of 16. He was educated at Kalutara Vidyalaya National School in Kalutara. He is now married to Sri Lankan teledrama actress Manjula Thilini. The marriage was celebrated in India during the 2008 IPL series, following Hindu rituals. Dilshan has a daughter from his second marriage and a son from his first marriage. Dilshan's brother, Tillakaratne Sampath, is a first-class cricketer in Sri Lanka.

Career

Debuted against Zimbabwe in 1999. He scored his maiden Test hundred in the series with a 163. Dilshan also made his One day international debut against Zimbabwe before spending the next 15 months in and out of the side. Even when he played he never knew his place in the side as he was constantly being pushed up and down the order.

His revival as an international cricketer came in 2003. In four consecutive Test innings he scored 63, 100, 83 and 104. The latter came against the world champion Australian side at Galle.

In the first final of the 2005-06 VB Series, Dilshan's fielding made headlines when he made four runouts.

In November 2007, Dilshan scored 188 for Bloomfield Cricket and Athletic Club against Colts Cricket Club in a 50 over game. The innings is the joint 14th highest score made in any List A cricket match (alongside Gary Kirsten's 188 in 1996), and came from just 135 balls, at a strike rate of 139.25. He hit 14 fours and 12 sixes before being bowled by fellow Sri Lankan international Nuwan Kulasekara. The scorecard for the game can be found here

Tillakaratne Dilshan batting during his innings of 193 at Lord's in June 2011.

In the 2009 T20 world cup series, Dilshan became player of the series with 317 runs in seven matches which includes three half centuries. He maintained a 52.83 batting average throughout the series, which was the fourth best among all the cricketers, behind AD Mathews (Sri Lanka) with 75, J Kallis (South Africa) with 59.5 and Younis Khan (Pakistan) with 57.33.

Dilshan courted controversy for his apparent role in the Suraj Randiv no-ball incident that deprived Sehwag a century in the ODI between Sri Lanka and India on 16 August 2010. He was later fined his entire match-fee for allegedly instigating Randiv.

His scoop, played straight over the wicket keeper's head, was displayed for the first time during this tournament and came to be known as the Dilscoop in his honour.

In the fourth season of Indian Premier League, he was contracted by Royal Challengers Bangalore for US$650,000.

Tillakaratne Dilshan was the top run scorer in the 2011 Cricket World Cup. He scored 500 runs from nine One Day international innings with a best score of 144 runs against Zimbabwe. He scored two centuries, two half centuries, 61 boundaries and four sixes during the tournament which ended at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, India on 2 April 2011.

Immediately after the end of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, with Kumar Sangakkara stepping down as captain, Dilshan was appointed captain of Sri Lanka in all three formats of the game.

However, shortly after his appointment as captain, cricket fans and pundits in Sri Lanka questioned if he was the right man to lead Sri Lanka.

On 29 December 2011, Sri Lanka registered their first ever Test win in South Africa. This also became their first Test win under Dilshan's captaincy. However, after losing the Test series 2–1 and the subsequent ODI series 3–2, Dilshan resigned and was replaced by Mahela Jayawardene.

His highest score in One Day Internationals came against India at the Bellerive Oval on 28th February, 2012. He scored 160* off 165 balls.
During this innings, he also shared a 200 run second run partnership with Kumar Sangakkara. This was the highest second wicket partnership for Sri Lanka in ODIs.

Test centuries

The following table gives a summary of the Test centuries scored by Tillakaratne Dilshan.

• In the column Runs, * indicates being not out
• The column title Match refers to the Match number of the player's career

Test centuries of Tillakaratne Dilshan
	Runs	Match	Against	City/country	Venue	Year
[1]	163	2	Zimbabwe	Harare, Zimbabwe	Harare Sports Club	1999
[2]	100	11	England	Kandy, Sri Lanka	Asgiriya Stadium	2003
[3]	104	13	Australia	Galle, Sri Lanka	Galle International Stadium	2004
[4]	168	27	Bangladesh	Colombo, Sri Lanka	P. Saravanamuttu Stadium	2005
[5]	125	46	India	Colombo, Sri Lanka	Sinhalese Sports Club Ground	2008
[6]	162	50	Bangladesh	Chittagong, Bangladesh	Chittagong Divisional Stadium	2009
[7]	143
[8]	145	52	Pakistan	Lahore, Pakistan	Gaddafi Stadium	2009
[9]	123*	56	New Zealand	Galle, Sri Lanka	Galle International Stadium	2009
[10]	112	58	India	Ahmedabad, India	Sardar Patel Stadium	2009
[11]	109	60	India	Mumbai, India	Brabourne Stadium	2009
[12]	193	68	England	London, England	Lord's Cricket Ground	2011

One Day International centuries

ODI centuries of Tillakaratne Dilshan
	Runs	Match	Against	City/country	Venue	Year
[1]	117*	94	Netherlands	Amstelveen, Netherlands	VRA Ground	2006
[2]	137*	155	Pakistan	Lahore, Pakistan	Gaddafi Stadium	2009
[3]	106	164	South Africa	Centurion, South Africa	SuperSport Park	2009
[4]	160	167	India	Rajkot, India	Madhavrao Scindia Cricket Ground	2009
[5]	123	168	India	Nagpur, India	Vidarbha Cricket Association Ground	2009
[6]	104	172	Bangladesh	Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh	Shere Bangla National Stadium	2010
[7]	108*	179	Zimbabwe	Harare, Zimbabwe	Harare Sports Club	2010
[8]	110	188	India	Dambulla, Sri Lanka	Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium	2010
[9]	144	199	Zimbabwe	Kandy, Sri Lanka	Pallekele International Cricket Stadium	2011
[10]	108*	201	England	Colombo, Sri Lanka	R. Premadasa Stadium	2011
[11]	160*	231	India	Hobart, Australia	Bellerive Oval	2012

T20I Cricket Centuries

T20I centuries of Tillakaratne Dilshan
	Runs	Match	Against	City/country	Venue	Year
[1]	104*	33	Australia	Pallekele, Sri Lanka	Pallekele International Cricket Stadium	2011

Further reading

• The decision that changed my career - Dilshan

External links

• Player profile: Tillakaratne Dilshan from ESPNcricinfo
• Player profile: Tillakaratne Dilshan from CricketArchive