Danushka Gunatilleke: The forgotten soul
Uncapped batsman Danushka Gunatilleke could look at himself as the
most overlooked cricketer in recent years and if his exploits over the
past year cannot catapult him into the Sri Lanka team, nothing will.
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Danushka Gunatilleke with his award for the best T20
domestic batsman (Picture by Sulochana Gamage) |
The most classic case of injustice against Gunatilleke, a left hand
opening batsman, took place when he was ignored for the recently
concluded home series against Pakistan in the selection of the squad for
the T20 series.
Taking part in the Sri Lanka domestic T20 championship, Gunatilleke
had the highest aggregate of 295 runs and six wickets from seven matches
that included the only century made in a local tournament. But the six
players selected for the Pakistan series were deeply below Gunatilleke's
performances.
The six players selected instead were Dasun Chanaka (134 runs),
Dhananjaya de Silva (175 runs), Chamara Kapugedera (149 runs),
Kithuruwan Vithanage (230 runs), Shehan Jayasuriya (78 runs and five
wickets) and Chathuranga de Silva (63 runs and three wickets).
Gunatilleke also hammered the highest number of sixes which stood at
18 with a strike rate of above 160.
Last Monday at the Dialog Sri Lanka Cricket annual awards he picked
up the prize for the best batsman at the domestic Premier T20
championships while playing for the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC).
A former Lumbini College player, Gunatilleke has been proving himself
since he played in the Under-19 Youth World Cup but continues to be cast
as an opening batsman in the Sri Lanka A team for the past two years.
On one such second string tour, Gunatilleke cracked five consecutive
half tons in a one-day series in England last year to finish as the top
run maker.
He had nothing more to prove when he finished as the leading
accumulator of runs on this month's concluded Sri Lanka A tour of New
Zealand after he made scores of 66, 106, 57, 65, 9 and 39 in the six
matches that his team featured in.
Two days ago he was named only as the last player in the list of a
15-member ODI squad to take on the West Indies in a three-match series. |
