Lakshan Sandakan
Lakshan Sandakan – professional Sri Lankan bowler
Lakshan Sandakan was born on June 10, 1991 in Ragama and began playing cricket professionally at 17. De Mazenot College graduate. He is represents the Sri Lanka national team in all three types of cricket competitions.
Lakshan Sandakan: career
Sandakan acts as a bowler and is one of the rare types of players who can cause a lot of trouble for batsmen due to unprecedented control over the ball and the ability to set it on an unforeseen trajectory. In particular, Rangana Herath spoke of him as follows:
His control is amazing. When you have this skill, you can be a real destroyer on the field, and he is not tied to one point on the field. He knows how to switch. It is a complete package – in short, it has everything you would expect from a bowler.
At home, he played first class matches for the CCC team (Colombo Cricket Club). Lakshan Sandakan took first place in the list of bowlers who recorded the maximum number of wickets with the minimum number of mistakes in the 2015-2016 season. He received an invitation to the local Super Four Provincial tournament in March 2018. A little later, the headquarters of the Dambulla Viiking Squad included the bowler in the main squad, which was supposed to perform at the SLC T20 League. The consistently great performance secured him a place in the Super Provincial One Day tournament (2019).
The athlete joined the Galle Gladiators as part of the new Sri Lanka Premier League presentation in the fall of 2020.
At various times, Lakshan has played for the following teams:
- the CCC;
- the Saracens Sports Club;
- the Southern Express CC.
Lakshan Sandakan: performing internationally
Lakshan Sandakan received an invitation to the Sri Lanka Test Team in July 2016. At the end of the month, he entered the field in a series of matches against the Australian national team for the first time.
His debut performance was highly acclaimed: having beaten Mitchell Marsh in the first inning, he finished the match with 7/107, breaking the record for rookie bowlers playing in his position in test games. It is noteworthy that in many respects, Sandakan’s results brought the Sri Lanka a victory over the Australians, which became only the second in 27 matches.
Lakshan made his debut for the national team in the ODI in August 2016. The same Australia opposed the Sri Lankans, but this time the bowler managed to live up to the expectations placed on him: he took his first wicket on the very first over.
Sandakan received an invitation to the T20I competition in January 2017, where the national team was to play against South Africa. Entering the field at the end of the month, he renews the record to capture the first wicket (it is worth noting that previously not a single representative of Sri Lanka managed to do this).
A few months later, the bowler returned to the ODI team against Zimbabwe, where he managed to take four wickets. As a result, the Sri Lankan team won a convincing victory with a difference of seven wickets. However, only a few months later, Lakshan managed to take the threshold of five wickets: this happened as part of the next test series, where India opposed his team. Unfortunately, despite Sandakan’s brilliant performance, the Sri Lanka lost to the Hindus for the first time in a long time.
The third test series, in which the bowler took part, was in Delhi. Despite the fact that the match was interrupted several times due to exceeding the air pollution norm, Lakshan Sandakan took four wickets in the first inning and helped to complete Dinesh Chandimal’s hundred.
He became one of the 33 players to receive an official Sri Lanka Cricket contract in May 2018.
