Kusal Perera

Early Cricket

Educated at Kottawa Dharmapala Maha Vidyalaya, and Royal College Colombo, he has played for the Royal–Thomian annual cricket encounter. At the younger age of 11 to 13 years, Kusal was a right-handed batsman, but at the later age, He was moved into left-hand. This change was due to his passion for the master stroke play of Sanath Jayasuriya, which given Kusal to change his way of batting.

Domestic career

He recently played for Rajasthan Royals in IPL. Kusal made his One day international debut against Australia on January 13, 2013, replacing the injured Dinesh Chandimal. His debut Twenty20 International also came in the same series against Australia on January 26, 2013.

He is known as a quick scorer, and can hit the ball very hard which has a same batting style of former Sri Lanka legend Sanath Jayasuriya. In a first class match he scored 330 of 270 balls, which is a domestic record.

ODI career

Perera was a part of a 15-man squad that toured Australia in January 2013. He made his debut in the 2nd ODI, where he came to bat on number 4 and scored an unbeaten 14 from 16 balls before Sri Lanka won by 8 wickets.

Perera hit his maiden ODI ton against Bangladesh on 22 February 2014. He scored 106 from 124 balls before getting bowled By Rubel Hossain. He won the "Man of the Match" award.

Perera was not qualified for the squad for 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup tournament due to poor performance against India and England. After the tournament starts, Dimuth Karunaratne was injured and Perera was called to the World Cup squad. He played his first World Cup match against Scotland on 11 March 2015, where he scored quick 24 runs. He was replaced to this match due to injury for Dinesh Chandimal aginast Australia. He opened the batting for Sri Lanka on quarter finals of the World Cup, where he failed again to score runs, only scored 3 runs. Sri Lanka eventually lost the match and quit from the World Cup as well.

After the retirement of two cricket legends Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena from ODIs, Kusal was brought to the squad as the permanent opening batsman with Tillakaratne Dilshan during ODI series against Pakistan. He just lost the first match for quick 26 runs in Dambulla. In the second match at Pallekele, Kusal smashed Pakistani pace bowlers to all the parts of the ground and scored the joint second fastest ODI fifty by 17 balls with his legendary master Sanath Jayasuriya 17-ball fifty in 1997. The shots of Kusal was described by the international commentators as the dawn of a new Little Sana, with just the same aggressive batting by Sanath in the past. Sri Lanka scored 92 in 9 overs in the match until Kusal departs to 25-ball 68 runs, where Sri Lanka chased down 287 runs and won the match by 2 wickets at the end. This win gave the highest ever ODI run chase in Pallekele and second highest run chase in Sri Lankan soil.

During the 2nd ODI match against West Indies, Kusal got out to 99 runs, just one short to his third century. He is the fourth Sri Lankan player to got out in 99 in ODIs, the other three are Kaluwitharana single time, Jayasuriya in two times, and Dilshan single time. He is the 26th of all cricketers to dismissed in 99.

T20 International Career

Perera made his T20I debut in the first T20I against Australia in January 2013 and scored 33 from 22 balls before getting caught behind off Australian all rounder, Glenn Maxwell. In this match he hit some aggressive shots and many compared him with Sanath Jayasuriya.

On 13 December 2013 he scored 84 runs from 59 balls against Pakistan and Sri Lanka and went on to score a massive total of 211. Sri Lanka won the match by 24 runs and Perera earned the "Man of the Match" for the performance. Kusal is the current wicket-keeper in T20 internationals.

2014 World T20

On 22 March 2014 against South Africa, Perera scored 61 runs from just 40 balls. Sri Lanka won the match by 5 runs and Perera won the "Man of The Match" award. He scored 125 runs in the tournament at an average of 20.83 and an impressive strike rate of 145.48. He had some quick runs in the next matches, but failed to effect larger to the team. However, Sri Lanka won their first T20I title by defeating India in the final.

Test career

After the retirement of Kumar Sangakkara, his position remained vacant for a new player and Kusal was brought into the team. He made his Test debut for Sri Lanka against India on 28 August 2015. His arrival to the test team was not good at all, when he dropped Indian skipper Virat Kohli in fairly easy catch. But then he took 2 catches and 1 stumping in that innings. He showed his batting talents right on the first innings of the match, where he was the top scorer for Sri Lanka with 56 runs in first innings. In second innings as well, he scored 70 runs to be the 2nd Sri Lankan batsman to score 2 successive half centuries on test debut after Dinesh Chandimal. But eventually Sri Lanka lost the match and also the series against India.

Doping violation

Perera have tested positive for a banned substance and has been recalled from the New Zealand tour in December 2015. His urine sample was provided for a random test by the International Cricket Council during the home series against Pakistan in May 2015.