Name Alex Mutucumarana | Role Cricket Player | |
Alex Mutucumarana (born 15 June 1979) is a cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and right-arm medium-pace bowler who plays for Reed CC in the Herts Championship. He was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Mutucumarana is the first player in history to appear to three different Test playing nations. He appeared for Sri Lanka U19 and Sri Lanka A in 2009, then played for Pakistan in a T20 Match in 2011. His last international appearance was a controversial one in which he walked away from the Pakistan side to play KFC Big Bash for the Melbourne Renegades, as Marlon Samuels drop out with injury. Mutucumarana joined on a pay as you play deal, rumoured to be in the region of £150,000 a game. After reaching Australia he was then named in the Indian Test team to tour South Africa when Sourav Ganguly announced his immediate retirement from Test cricket.
Mutucumarana made a single List A appearance for Huntingdonshire, during the 2001 season, against the Gloucestershire Cricket Board. From the upper-middle order, he scored 129 runs. In 2010, he played 1 match for the MCC against Stevenage and will now play for them fairly regularly.
After suffering an Hamstring injury early on in the 2015 season whilst playing against West Herts CC, Mutucumarana took time away from the game to rehabilitate. Whilst away from the game he went to watch the First Test in the Ashes series in Cardiff. Unfortunately Mutucumurana was mistaken for his 3rd cousin, Umpire Kumar Dharmasena. During the Tea break on the 2nd day Dharmasena became ill with heat exhaustion from the harsh Welsh sun and was ruled unfit to umpire. Mutucumarana was called in as his identical replacement, he umpired the final session on the 2nd day and controversially gave out Shane Watson. Watson was adjudged Leg Before Wicket, which he reviewed and the review was unsuccessful and the decision stood.
Prior to Umpire-Gate in Cardiff, footage of Mutucumarana arose of him performing a questionable dancing routine. There is no idea how the footage came about but it involved other teammates of Mutucumaranas, in only what could be described as a One Direction Tribute Band after the loss of Zayn Malik. After his performance, rumour has it that 1D personnel have come knocking for Mutucumarana to replace Malik in One Direction, some say it is because of his ethnicity and others say it is because of his celebrity status in Sri Lanka and India.