Charith Asalanka


Kariyawasam Indipalage Charith Asalanka is a Sri Lankan cricketer.

Early career

Asalanka toured England with the Sri Lanka under-17 team in 2013, opening the batting and top-scoring in each innings with 92 and 31 in a three-day match against an English under-17 team at Loughborough. He opened the batting for his school, Richmond College, Galle, in 2014-15, helping them into the final of the schools' twenty-20 competition. He captained the national under-19 team against under-19 teams from Australia and Bangladesh in 2014-15. In the five-match limited-overs series against Bangladesh under-19 he was Sri Lanka's highest scorer, with 225 runs at an average of 45.00, and second-highest wicket-taker, with eight wickets at 21.00. He was most prominent in Sri Lanka's victory in the first match, with 4 for 36 and 63. He was awarded Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year award in the years 2015 and 2016 becoming only the seventh player to win the award twice.

Domestic career

He made his first-class debut in April 2015, in the match to decide who should take the final place in the Premier Trophy in the following season. Galle Cricket Club batted first and were all out for 31. Sri Lanka Air Force Sports Club made 215 in reply. In their second innings Galle lost their first wicket in the second over, but Asalanka, batting at number three, hit 114 off 123 balls, and Galle totalled 295. Sri Lanka Air Force Sports Club needed 112 to win, but Asalanka took 4 for 34 to dismiss them for 107, and Galle won by four runs.
He made his Twenty20 debut for Sinhalese Sports Club in the 2017–18 SLC Twenty20 Tournament on 1 March 2018.
In April 2018, he was named in Kandy's squad for the 2018 Super Provincial One Day Tournament. In August 2018, he was named in Kandy's squad for the 2018 SLC T20 League. He was the leading wicket-taker for Kandy in the tournament, with ten dismissals in six matches.

U19 captaincy and international career

He captained Sri Lanka under-19 in a two-match series against Pakistan under-19 in October 2015, scoring 334 runs at an average of 167.00, with a double-century and a century. He also captained Sri Lanka in the 2016 Under-19 Cricket World Cup.
In November 2018, he was added to Sri Lanka's Test squad for their series against England, but he did not play. In December 2018, he was named as the captain of the Sri Lanka team for the 2018 ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup. In November 2019, he was named as the captain of Sri Lanka's squad for the 2019 ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup in Bangladesh. Later the same month, he was named as the captain of Sri Lanka's squad for the cricket tournament at the 2019 South Asian Games. The Sri Lanka team won the silver medal, after they lost to Bangladesh by seven wickets in the final.