Roshan Mahanama

Deshabandu Roshan Siriwardene Mahanama (born 31 May 1966 in Colombo) is a former Sri Lankan cricketer and a former ICC match referee.^[1] He was a key member for 1996 Cricket World Cup winning team for Sri Lanka. He is the first man to have stood as a match referee in a day-night test match in Test history.

In September 2015, Mahanama said that he would step down from the ICC match referee panel at the end of the year; he will spend his time with his family and his businesses.^[2]

International career

Roshan is the 36th Sri Lanka Test Cap where he played Sri Lanka Vs Pakistan at Colombo 1985/86.^[3]

Although he averaged less than 30 at Test cricket, he did score four centuries, including a top score of 225 for the Sri Lankan cricket team against India at Colombo, where he shared a then world record second wicket partnership of 576 runs with Sanath Jayasuriya.^[4] This record was surpassed in July 2006 as the largest partnership in Test match history by fellow Sri Lankans Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene who put on 624 against South Africa.^[5] The partnership between Jayasuriya-Mahanama still stood as the highest partnership for the second wicket in Test cricket.

Mahanama established himself as stylish opening batsman in the late 1980s & early 1990s under the captaincy of Aravinda de Silva. In the 1992 Cricket World Cup, Roshan Mahanama was selected as opening batsman along with M.A.R. Samarasekera & U.C. Hathurusingha, scoring 59 runs off 89 balls v.s. Zimbabwe, 80 runs off 131 balls v.s. New Zealand & 68 runs off 121 balls v.s. South Africa.

'Retired hurt' is common parlance in cricket, but that is the name former Sri Lankan cricketer Roshan Mahanama chose for his biography, reflecting his feelings after he was not considered for selection in the One-dayers and Tests, following the team's disastrous showing in the 1999 World Cup.

The authorities told Mahanama that he was dropped to groom young talent. But then players older than him found a place, and that hurt the veteran. As a matter of principle and self-respect he decided to retire. These facts are mentioned in the book 'Retired hurt,' penned by noted Australian sports chronicler Ken Piesse, based on 40 hours of taped narration on Roshan's experience on and off the field.

Match referee

Following his retirement from international cricket in 1999, Roshan Mahanama made the transition into becoming an International Cricket Council match referee. He made his debut as a match referee in the ODI between West Indies and Bangladesh in Kingstown 2004. In the same series, he made his Test debut and to date, he has refereed in 61 Tests. On 21 October 2014 during ODI series between New Zealand and South Africa, Roshan Mahanama entered the elite group of match referees who have officiated 200+ matches.^[6]

Mahanama step down ^[7] from the match referee at the last test of New Zealand v Australia with having joined the elite panel in 2004 and has refereed in 61 Tests, 222 ODIs and 35 T20Is till 15 September, including in three World Cups and the Champions Trophy 2009. Mahanama became the first match referee to be acted in a day-night Test match in the history of the game, where the pink ball was used for the first time as well.

International Centuries

As an opener in the first few years at career, Mahanama was later moved to middle order rigid batsmen with the new openers Romesh Kaluwitharana and Sanath Jayasuriya due to the revolutionized batting display gave them the permanent opening positions. Anyway, until retirement, Mahanama has scored 4 Test centuries and 4 ODI centuries.

Test Centuries

The following table illustrates a summary of the Test centuries scored by Roshan Mahanama

• In the column Runs, * indicates being not out
• The column title Match refers to the Match Number of the player's career

Test Centuries of Roshan Mahanama
	Runs	Match	Against	City, Country	Venue	Start date	Result
[1]	153	15	New Zealand	Moratuwa, Sri Lanka	Tyronne Fernando Stadium	27 November 1992	Drawn
[2]	109	16	New Zealand	Colombo, Sri Lanka	Sinhalese Sports Club Ground	6 December 1992	Won
[3]	151	20	India	Colombo, Sri Lanka	P. Saravanamuttu Stadium	4 August 1993	Drawn
[4]	225	44	India	Colombo, Sri Lanka	R. Premadasa Stadium	2 August 1997	Drawn

ODI Centuries

The following table illustrates a summary of the ODI centuries scored by Roshan Mahanama

ODI Centuries of Roshan Mahanama
	Runs	Match	Against	City, Country	Venue	Date	Result
[1]	107	72	New Zealand	Colombo, Sri Lanka	R. Premadasa Stadium	13 December 1992	Won
[2]	119*	108	Zimbabwe	Harare, Zimbabwe	Harare Sports Club	3 November 1994	Won
[3]	108	109	Zimbabwe	Harare, Zimbabwe	Harare Sports Club	5 November 1994	Won
[4]	101	124	West Indies	Sharjah, UAE	Sharjah Cricket Stadium	11 October 1995	Won

International match referee statistics

As of the 30 March 2016:

International awards

One-Day International Cricket

Man of the Match awards

No	Opponent	Venue	Date	Match Performance	Result
1	India	Wankhede Stadium, Bombay	17 January 1987	1 Ct. ; 98 (91 balls: 7x4)	India won by 10 runs.[8]
2	New Zealand	Bellerive Oval, Hobart	12 January 1988	1 Ct. ; 58 (83 balls: 4x4, 1x6)	Sri Lanka won by 4 wickets.[9]
3	Pakistan	Bangabandhu National Stadium, Dhaka	27 October 1988	3 Ct. ; 55 (92 balls: 3x4)	Sri Lanka won by 5 wickets.[10]
4	New Zealand	P Sara Oval, Colombo	12 December 1992	2 Ct. ; 84* (109 balls: 7x4, 1x6)	Sri Lanka won by 8 wickets.[11]
5	New Zealand	R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo	13 December 1992	107 (132 balls: 7x4)	Sri Lanka won by 31 runs.[12]

See also

• Ananda-Nalanda

References

External links

• Roshan Mahanama at ESPNcricinfo
• Roshan Mahanama at CricketArchive (subscription required)