Upul Tharanga is a left-handed opening batsman and occasional wicket-keeper.
30 Facts About Upul Tharanga
2.
On 23 February 2021, Upul announced his retirement from international cricket.
3.
Upul Tharanga's father Warushavithanage Bhadrasoma was a fish market dealer.
4.
Upul Tharanga first attended Devananda College, Ambalangoda, and passed grade 5 scholarship in 1995.
5.
Since then, Upul Tharanga had his secondary education at Dharmasoka College, Ambalangoda until ordinary level.
6.
Upul Tharanga started his cricket career as a teenager at his school.
7.
Upul Tharanga had a successful under-19 World Cup in 2004 with successful innings of 117 and 61 in successive games.
8.
Upul Tharanga was sent by the Sri Lankan cricketing board to play league cricket for Loughton Cricket Club in Essex.
9.
Upul Tharanga was the leading run-scorer in the tournament, with 396 runs in six matches.
10.
Upul Tharanga was the leading run-scorer for the tournament, finishing with 414 runs in six matches, including another unbeaten century in the final.
11.
Upul Tharanga finished off with 109 off 102 balls, and played a pivotal role in completing the whitewash against England in England for the first time.
12.
Upul Tharanga has come in for special praise from Jayasuriya, one of the legends of cricket, saying that he could be the next captain of the Sri Lankan cricket team.
13.
Upul Tharanga is the second batsman in the world who was involved with 7 times 200+ partnerships in ODI cricket after Ricky Ponting.
14.
On 2 July 2013, Upul Tharanga scored the second highest ODI score of 174* by a Sri Lankan only behind Sanath Jayasuriya who scored 189 against India.
15.
Upul Tharanga is the fastest Sri Lankan to reach 4000 ODI runs, reached by 119 innings.
16.
Upul Tharanga scored 46 runs in the first innings and 48 in the second innings.
17.
Upul Tharanga holds the record of waiting for Maximum number of days between two test centuries.
18.
Upul Tharanga, who had a long ODI scarcity, was included to the ODI squad against Pakistan.
19.
Upul Tharanga was the 19th captain for Sri Lanka in ODIs.
20.
Upul Tharanga was selected again as the ODI captain for the South Africa series, when Mathews was not available after he sustained an injury during the second T20I.
21.
On 9 February 2017, Upul Tharanga was named as the T20I captain for Sri Lanka during the 3-T20I tour for Australia, where stand-in captain Dinesh Chandimal was ruled out from the tour due to poor performances.
22.
Upul Tharanga was the 8th captain for Sri Lanka in T20Is.
23.
However, Sri Lanka lost the match by 96 runs and due to slow over rate, Upul Tharanga was fined with two matches after four-hour innings and disqualified for rest of the pool games against India and Pakistan.
24.
On 16 October 2017, Upul Tharanga became the first batsman for Sri Lanka, and the first captain overall, to carry his bat in an ODI.
25.
Apart from suffering whitewashes at the hands of South Africa, India and Pakistan in 2017, that threatened automatic qualification for the 2019 Cricket World Cup, Upul Tharanga got into trouble twice due to slow over rates and was suspended.
26.
Upul Tharanga initially claimed he had taken some medication for asthma and had no idea it was a banned drug.
27.
An independent anti-doping tribunal was convened at which Upul Tharanga pleaded guilty, claiming he had taken some herbal remedy to ease discomfort caused by a long-standing shoulder injury.
28.
The tribunal accepted that Upul Tharanga "had no intention to enhance his sporting performance or to mask the use of another performance enhancing substance, but that he had failed to satisfy the high levels of personal responsibility implicit upon him as an international cricketer subject to anti-doping rules".
29.
Upul Tharanga made his ODI debut against West Indies in 2005.
30.
Upul Tharanga scored his first ODI century back in 2005 against Bangladesh scoring 105 in R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.