Estelle Vasudevan, Jarrod Kimber
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The first sign that Matheesha Pathirana was headed for a career in cricket came via a burnt bat. By his mother. Among the hurdles every cricketer inevitably faces on the way to the top level, how many can claim equipment burnt by a loving parent?
Pathirana’s parents had one goal for their three children: they wanted them to be academically qualified. His mother’s dream was that her only son would be a pilot. Things were going well, until cricket came along. The young Matheesha was a naughty child and cricket-mad. His mother thought drastic measures were needed to get his focus back on academics, and she burnt his bat.
It wasn’t quite the roadblock she envisaged though. After the bat was burnt, Pathirana merely took a stick and started hitting rocks off the upper floor of the house the same day. And, as most cricket-playing kids have done at some point or another, Pathirana ended up breaking a neighbour’s window by accident. And his father then ended up getting him another bat anyway.
That was when Pathirana was barely a teenager. Today, batters facing him might well think of burning their own bats.
The player who seems like he’s Lasith Malinga reborn, is now lighting up the tournament that Malinga is a legend in.
Malinga was part of Mumbai Indians’ title-winning squads across several IPLs: in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019. He was the OG yorker king of the tournament. Though Malinga had success against many opponents, he seemed to savour playing the Chennai Super Kings in particular, picking up 37 wickets against them. That was the joint-most for any player against a single opponent in T20 cricket, at the time of his retirement.
The curly hair with the frosted tips, slingy action and that disarming smile were probably the stuff of nightmares for the men in yellow, who no doubt would have loved to have Malinga in their team at some point over their long rivalry with the Mumbai Indians. Well, four seasons after his last ball in the IPL – a slower ball yorker on middle to trap Shardul Thakur lbw and give Mumbai their fourth title – CSK have perhaps found the next best thing.
Pathirana’s first call up to the IPL was as a net-bowler in 2021, but he had to turn it down because of commitments to school games and academics. When he was called up as a replacement for Adam Milne the next season, it caught a few people by surprise, because Pathirana hadn’t played for Sri Lanka yet. He hadn’t even gotten into a Sri Lankan squad by then. There were real doubts about his control – and here he was being called up to as storied a franchise as CSK.
As a raw 19-year-old, Pathirana got his chance in the latter part of a poor season for CSK. With Malinga’s No. 99 on his back, he delivered in Malinga-esque fashion with his first delivery – full, straight, plumb. The stuff of dreams for a young man who had grown up watching the IPL.
In IPL 2023, he went from being a replica of an IPL legend, to a player with the potential to carry CSK’s death bowling for years to come. It was quite a responsibility to carry as a 20-year-old. And boy, did he carry it well.
He ended the tournament as CSK’s most economical quick, despite bowling the toughest overs – often three at a stretch at the death – and fourth most successful quick in the competition. He had 18 wickets at just over 8 runs an over at the death, a number you’d be happy to take from a veteran, let alone a guy in his second season.
As IPL 2024 kicked off, there was a cloud hanging over Pathirana’s availability for the tournament – CSK fans’ desperate inquiries of his fitness inundating his social media accounts. Then he turned up in his second game of the season, against Delhi Capitals, and grabbed a stunning diving catch at short third, putting to bed any injury concerns.
His night was just beginning. A precise yorker flattened Mitchell Marsh’s middle-stump in the 15th over and then Tristan Stubbs suffered an almost identical fate. This time it was the off-stump that lay splayed on the floor.
When Malinga was looking for wickets, there was a sense that you could almost predict what was coming your way – a full straight one – but you still couldn’t do anything about it. If there’s anything about Pathirana that’s a throwback to Malinga other than his action, it’s this near inevitability of stumps being splayed.
As his nickname ‘Baby Malinga’ suggests, he is still in the infancy of reaching the heights of his idol. He has the slower ball, the yorker, the bouncer and the speed. But there is still a long way to go and a lot to learn along the way. His two stump-splaying yorkers against the Capitals reawakened the Malinga comparisons. And with his talent, temperament, and the backing of CSK, Pathirana is poised to write many more chapters as his IPL story unfolds.
