Hettige Don Rumesh Lahiru Thirimanne, known as Lahiru Thirimanne is a professional Sri Lankan cricketer, and a former ODI captain. He is a left-handed batsman and a right-arm medium-fast bowler, and also acted as the vice-captain of the Sri LankaOne Day International team, when he was dropped from the team after poor performances. He was recalled in 2018 for the national team.
School career
Thirimanne began his cricketing career at S.Thomas' College, Bandarawela and played Under 11 cricket and his first coach was Sujeewa Gunarathne. He studied at S.Thomas' College Bandarawela initially as his father, who was employed at the Survey Department was transferred. After passing the grade 5 scholarship exam Lahiru joined Prince of Wales College, Moratuwa and played in the Under 13,15,17 and 19 team.
During the 2014 Asia Cup in Bangladesh, he opened the batting with Kusal Perera, due to injury of Tillakaratne Dilshan, who was not included to the series. He scored two magnificent hundreds against Pakistan, where he finally ended up being the highest run scorer in the tournament with 2 centuries with the average of 55.80. Eventually, Sri Lanka became champions for the fifth time in Asia Cup history. Thirimanne was adjudged man of the match of final and also player of the series. During the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup, Thirimanne started to open the batting with Tillakaratne Dilshan. Before the tournament, the Sri Lankan opening pair was struggling to pick up, but finally, it was sealed between Thirimanne and Dilshan. On 1 March 2015, he scored his 4th ODI century against England, where Sri Lanka successfully chased 309 runs. He added 212* runs for the second wicket partnership with Kumar Sangakkara to win the match. This remains the highest 2nd wicket partnership for Sri Lanka in ODI cricket He was unbeaten 139 in the match.
Comeback
Thirimanne did not included in any of the international squad since January 2016 due to very poor performances in both domestic and international arena. In July 2017, he was included to the practice match against India and scored 56 runs. However, the score did not effect for the inclusion to test series. With many injury concerns within the named squad for Sri Lanka, Thirimanne was recalled into the second Test at SSC, although he did not feature in the first XI. Thirimanne was also not initially selected for the limited over series against India, but after the injury to Danushka Gunathilaka, and suspension to Upul Tharanga, Thirimanne along with Dinesh Chandimal were brought into the ODI side. He played in the third ODI and scored 80 runs, which was the highest scored for Sri Lanka in the match. However, Sri Lanka lost the match and also lost the eighth consecutive ODI series to India. In May 2018, he was one of 33 cricketers to be awarded a national contract by Sri Lanka Cricket ahead of the 2018–19 season. In April 2019, he was named in Sri Lanka's squad for the 2019 Cricket World Cup. On 4 June 2019, in Sri Lanka's match against Afghanistan, Thirimanne scored his 3,000th run in ODI cricket. In the first Test match against New Zealand in August 2019, Thirimanne scored a match winning half century in the fourth innings to chase down a target of 267. This is the first time a team has successfully chased down a fourth-innings target of more than 100 in Galle Stadium as well. New Zealand posted 267 runs in their second innings to win the match, where Thirimanne along with skipper Dimuth Karunaratne gave a strong opening partnership of 161 runs. This stand ranks as only the second instance where fourth innings of a Test match in Asia scored more than 150 run opening partnership.
Captaincy
Thirimanne captainced the cricket team for 2014 Asian Games at Incheon, where Sri Lanka won the gold medl by defeating Afghanistan in the final. On 23 January 2015, during the fifth ODI against New Zealand, he captained the Sri Lanka, due to slight injury of captain Angelo Mathews. However, his first match as a captain did not underway well, as they lost the match by 108 runs. He also took 2 wickets at that match, and scored 45 runs as an opener. He also captained the 6th and 7th ODIs of the series, where 6th ODI ended with a huge defeat, and 7th ODI was comfortably won under his captaincy. However, Sri Lanka lost the series to 4–2 finally. In 2019, ten Sri Lanka players including permanent ODI and T20I captain withdrew the tour of Pakistan citing security concerns. Therefore, Thirimanne was announced as the ODI captain for the 3-match series. During the series, first ODI was abandoned due to heavy rain. Sri Lanka lost the next two games and lost the ODI series 2-0.
