Lasith Malinga
Separamadu Lasith Malinga (Sinhala: සෙපරමාදු ලසිත් මාලිංග;Tamil: லசித் மாலிங்க;born 28 August 1983) is a Sri Lankan former cricketer who is widely regarded as one of the greatest Sri Lankan limited overs bowlers of all time. Playing as a right-arm fast bowler, Malinga was commonly used as a specialist death bowler, and captained the Sri Lanka national cricket team to the 2014 T20 World Cup title. He was nicknamed "Slinga Malinga" due to his distinctive round-arm action, sometimes referred to as a sling action. Malinga announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on 14 September 2021 and migrated to Melbourne.
Malinga's unorthodox action and dipping slower ball yorkers are credited with much of his success. He changed the dynamics and landscape of death bowling in limited overs cricket through his technique and approach. Malinga is known for his ability to take wickets on consecutive balls, often through bowling in-swinging yorkers: he is the only bowler in the world to have two World Cup hat-tricks, the first bowler to take a double hat-trick, the only bowler to take 4 wickets in 4 balls twice in international cricket, the only bowler to have taken three hat-tricks in ODIs and only bowler to have two double hat-tricks. He is also the first bowler to take five hat-tricks across all formats of international cricket, and holds the record for most hat-tricks in international cricket.
On 22 April 2011, he announced his retirement from Test cricket. He has been named as the official event ambassador for the World Twenty20 Championships by ICC. On 26 July 2019, he retired from One Day International cricket after the first ODI against Bangladesh.
In September 2019, during the series against New Zealand, Malinga became the first bowler to take 100 wickets in Twenty20 International cricket. He achieved a hat-trick, becoming the first bowler to claim two T20I hat-tricks, and took four wickets in four consecutive balls in the third over of his spell. This feat made him the second bowler to accomplish this in T20I history, following Rashid Khan.
In January 2021, he retired from T20 franchise cricket. In September 2021, Malinga announced his retirement from all forms of cricket.
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