Exactly who is Sadeera Samarawickrama? The essential information regarding Sri Lanka’s wicketkeeper batter

Sadeera Samarawickrama is a professional cricketer from Sri Lanka who competes for the island nation in all game types. The Colombo-born player, 28, debuted for his country in a Test match against Pakistan in 2017. The spry wicketkeeper-batter has participated in eight Test matches and has so far amassed 281 runs at a strike rate of 23.41.

On September 9 at the R Premadasa International Cricket Stadium in Colombo, Sadeera Samarawickrama demonstrated his prowess with the bat by smashing a half-century in Sri Lanka’s Asia Cup Super Four match against Bangladesh. The 28-year-old finished with a 93 run ODI score from 72 balls, which featured eight boundaries and two maximums, but fell short of a century. In the 50-over format, this was his fifth half-century overall and second consecutive fifty versus Bangladesh.

Sadeera Samarawickrama entered the batting at position number four as Sri Lanka had lost two wickets and reached 108. As the hosts scored 81 runs in the final 10 overs, the youngster went berserk. The final ball of the innings, against Taskin Ahmed, saw him fall short. His previous high score in the format was 82 runs, which he got against Ireland earlier this year.

Sadeera Samarawickrama played in his 20th ODI match and amassed 550 runs at an average of 34.37.

By 21 runs, Sri Lanka defeated Bangladesh.

After choosing to bat first after losing the toss, Sri Lanka amassed 257/9 owing to the tenacious performance of Sadeera Samarawickrama. In addition to him, wicketkeeper-batsman Kusal Mendis made a huge contribution by going for a fifty. The team lead by Shakib Al Hasan captured three wickets from Taskin Ahmed, three from Hasan Mahmud, and two from Shoriful Islam.

With the opening pair of Mohammad Naim and Mehidy Hasan contributing a stand of more than fifty runs, Bangladesh’s defence of 257 had gotten off to a strong start. However, Bangladesh’s middle over was destroyed by the double blows of Sri Lankan captain Dasun Shanaka. The team then received a glimmer of hope when Towhid Hridoy (82) and Mushfiqur Rahim (29) scored 72 runs for the fifth wicket. However, Bangladesh was only able to reach 236 in 48.1 overs thanks to the three wickets taken by Shanaka, Matheesha Pathirana, and Maheesh Theekshana.