Cricket fans will always remember Roshan Mahanama as the classically correct batsman who shared a then world record second wicket partnership of 576 runs with the mercurial Sanath Jayasuriya in the 1997 Colombo Test match against India.
But not many would know that three years before that 1997 Colombo Test in which Sri Lanka had made a staggering 952/6, the soft-spoken Mahanama defied the iconic players Arjuna Ranatunga and Aravinda de Silva to lead a depleted team in the 1994 Austral-Asia Cup in Sharjah…
During a webinar with the students of Dubai’s Tellicherry Cricket Academy last month, Mahanama revealed that several senior Sri Lankan players, including then captain Ranatunga and De Silva, decided to pull out of the tournament in Sharjah.
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