All Ten: The Ultimate Bowling Feat

252 and Sri Lanka’s lack of Test cricket he had already played in his last Test. Most of Wickramasinghe’s victims were induced to give catches, with Wickramaratne picking up four of them behind the stumps on the way to a haul of eight catches in the match. He only needed to hit the stumps twice, cleaning up Kalutara’s captain Lois Karunaratne for the first of three middle-order ducks in a row, and completing his full hand of victims by bowling last man Devapriya for 4, the highest score he would make in his six first-class innings. Later in the day Devapriya would take his only three first-class wickets. Anxious to continue to make up for lost time Ahangama declared his side’s first innings just 26 ahead and then got an early Kalutara wicket to leave them 8 for one at the close. Next morning Wickramasinghe soon dismissed Warusamana and the unfortunate Hemantha. Another collapse seemed to be in the offing, but this time Kalutara’s batsmen showed more resilience and by the time they were finally dismissed (Wickramasinghe three for 46) SSC were left little time to chase the 158 they needed for victory. That they managed to achieve their target in only 18.3 overs was mainly due to Arjuna Ranatunga’s 89 not out. Warusamana bowled for the only time in his 52-match career, five overs of medium pace yielding a rather pricey two for 61. Having hosted the best ever bowling analysis in Sri Lanka, the SSC Ground would later host the highest ever partnership in first-class cricket when Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene put on 624 in a Test match against South Africa in July 2006. Wickramasinghe’s all-ten clearly impressed the selectors and a month later he was making his Test debut against Pakistan in Sialkot. After taking five wickets in an innings in the Third Test at Faisalabad, he became a fairly regular member of the Sri Lanka attack during the next decade, his steadiness often providing a useful foil to the more exotic skills of Muttiah Muralitharan. However, surgery on his shoulder in 2000 more or less ended his Test career. With 85 wickets from 40 matches he was then Sri Lanka’s third highest wicket-taker behind the two men who are still well clear at the top, Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas. He only played once against England, at The Oval in August 1998 when, as Sri Lanka’s second most successful bowler (with two wickets!), he was part of an attack that provided a support act to the marvellous Murali who took 16 wickets and bowled his side to victory. In all first-class cricket he took 345 wickets; he also played in 134 one-day internationals, most notably on the winning side in the 1996 World Cup Final in Lahore, taking 109 wickets. Having played his last match in 2002 Wickramasinghe remained in the game, later becoming both president of the Sri Lanka Cricketers’ Association, and a national selector. Pramodya Wickramasinghe