Prakash Govindasreenivasan,

To say Dilhara Fernando was destiny’s child, would be a gross understatement. Tall and adequately-built, Fernando took to basketball — a sport that probably suited him better. And then came his first tryst with cricket in 1995. He was 16 when he was roped in to play for his school, De Mahenod. The team was short of a player and needed someone to fill in and they picked Fernando due to lack of options. “One day, on the morning of a match, my school team had only 10 players. They wanted an extra guy. So I was in,” he recalled in an interview with the Hindu in 2001.

But, as fate would have it, he proved to be more than just filler. When his school’s main bowlers were getting plastered all over the park, his captain threw the ball to him in a bid to try something different. Fernando, whose only experience at cricket was with tennis ball on the beaches of Kandana, dismissed half the opposition team. Continue reading →