Rajith Nipuna

[Cricinfo @cricinfo]

The OG ‘Mad Max’ of the grandest occasions! 🦾

A match-winning knock in the 1996 World Cup semi-final, an unbeaten 107 and three wickets in the final, Aravinda de Silva was the difference between Sri Lanka and history 🇱🇰

Happy birthday, legend! 🎂

[Abhishek AB @ABsay_ek]

There was a time when Sri Lankan cricket felt like watching the same tragedy on repeat. Different stages, different villains, same ending.

Sangakkara & Jayawardene had seen Gilchrist demolish them in Bridgetown, 2007. Had seen Afridi pull miracles in London, 2009. Had seen Gambhir & Dhoni chip away in Mumbai, 2011 until nothing remained. Had seen Samuels stand & destroy in their own backyard in 2012.

Each time they shook hands & smiled for cameras. Each time they returned to hotel rooms & stared at ceilings until morning came.

Then came the ultimatum from the board, right before 2014 T20 World Cup. Sign away your rights or stay home. Let someone else wear your colours in Bangladesh. They packed their bags without guarantees. Played for a country that could not promise to pay them.

In Dhaka, they dropped Kohli when he was on 11 in 16 balls. They missed a run-out chance of Rohit Sharma too. On any other night, this would be the story of failure. But they had learned something bitter & true. Wickets make pretty pictures. Dot balls buy you time.

So they kept the field in. Kept the pressure breathing down Indian necks. Wide yorker after wide yorker. 19 runs in the last 4 overs. Kohli ran himself out off the final ball, desperate for a second that existed only in his head. India ended on 130 which should have been 160.

The crowd in Dhaka knew what this was. 20 million watching across the island knew. Last dance for the two who had given their adult lives to this game. No going back. No second thoughts.

When Perera hit the winning six, Jayawardene was not at the wicket. Raina had taken him, Ashwin had held the catch at mid-wicket. But he was there in the dugout. Waiting. Sangakkara was there at the non-strike end.

Then the stumps were not the only things uprooted.

They lifted Sangakkara first. Then Jayawardene. Two men who had lost so often that losing had become part of their skin, finally holding something that cannot be bought, cannot be signed away on board papers, cannot be counted in rupees or dollars or anything except the weight of finally, finally, finally.

[Abhishek AB @ABsay_ek]

30 years ago today, if you were lucky enough to be watching, you saw something that shouldn't have been possible.

People were still drunk on the 1996 World Cup. Still carrying the glow of that win in Lahore, the one that made a tiny island believe it could own the cricket world. Two weeks of celebration before Sanath Jayasuriya walked out to bat in Singapore & decided that mere mortals needed new numbers to chase.

He reached his fifty in 32 balls. Fast, sure, but we'd seen fast before. Then he reached a hundred in 48 balls. Before that afternoon, no one, who'd swung a heavy bat in anger; had reached three figures in less than 60 balls in ODIs. Sanath did it in 48.

And he wasn't done. At one point; he was batting at 134 from 58 balls. 84 runs scored in 26 balls. Even in 2026, with all our T20 finishing schools & shrinking boundary ropes, that sequence still sounds like fiction in ODIs.

11 sixes, First time anyone had cleared the rope 10 times in a one-day innings. The ground in Singapore wasn't big enough to hold what he was doing. The game itself wasn't big enough.

You'd think that would be enough for one lifetime. One week, even. But Sanath was playing a different sport than the rest of the world. Just one game later, he made a fifty in 17 balls. The fastest ever. 3 weeks after a World Cup victory, he held the records for fastest fifty & fastest hundred in the same breath.

We didn't know it then, but we were watching the future arrive early. The openers who came after; Sehwag, Gilchrist, the whole thundering herd, they were all running down a path that Sanath hacked through the jungle that day in Singapore.

[Cricinfo @cricinfo]

Aravinda de Silva's all-round mastery in the 1996 World Cup final is the stuff of legends 🐐

[Cricket Picture that Goes Hard @HardCricketpix]

💥

[Sri Lanka Tweet 🇱🇰 @SriLankaTweet]

May we never see war again🕊️🕯️
On this day 16 years ago, the war in Sri Lanka ended.
Remembering all Sri Lankans 🇱🇰 who lost their lives🙏
#RemembranceDay 🪔🕯️

#SriLanka #LKA #May18 #Mullivaikkal #Remembering

[Vajira Sumedha🐦 🇱🇰 @vajirasumeda]

Singha Regiment
Soldier No: 1209
Demised - 1990-11-21 palali (north #Srilanka)
R.M premadasa
............
A father of war hero searching his son's name in the list carved in war hero monument in colombo with a note in his hand.
#VictoryDay Salute !!

[Aravinthan Arunthavanathan @Cricket_decoded]

From May 2006, Mahela averaged a stunning 73.43 in Tests over a frame of 50 consecutive innings. A phase that cab cover many decent Test careers. During this period, 14 centuries were scored by MJ, including a triple. Here's a contextual recap of a few of the gems he scored...

[Dr Chandana Wickaramasinghe @DrChandanaWick]

🚨"SriLanka's Silent Storm: A New Viral Threat Is Already Here"

Multiple influenza strains and COVID co-infections are quietly spreading—but the country’s surveillance and health systems remain dangerously behind.

Multiple strains of influenza—H1N1, H3N2, and B—are already mutating and circulating at the same time.

Even more disturbing is the detection of co-infections with COVID-19 variants like Omicron, creating the potential for unpredictable, possibly deadlier outcomes.

Yet outside the labs, it feels like no one is listening.
Our surveillance systems are patchy, our public health communication inconsistent, and our hospitals dangerously under prepared.

I spoke to a doctor in Kandy who described treating a child battling both flu and COVID-19 with barely enough medication and no protocol for managing the double threat.

We need a nationwide, coordinated response now—genomic surveillance, trained personnel, rapid alerts—not six months from now, not after the next outbreak. Because the next wave of illness won’t wait for better policy, and SriLanka cannot afford another silent storm.

#HealthCrisis #HealthEmergency #SriLanka #lka #Ceylon #SLNews #SrilankaHealth #SriLankan

[Formula 1 @F1]

LEWIS HAMILTON WINS #F1SPRINT, HIS FIRST VICTORY FOR FERRARI 🤩

#F1 #ChineseGP

[Cricinfo @cricinfo]

#OnThisDay in 1996, a Sanath storm blew England away in the World Cup quarter-final in Faisalabad 🌪️ https://t.co/jF2Xaj0RQw

[Abhishek AB @ABsay_ek]

On This Day in 1996: The Day Jayasuriya-Kalu Ended a Career

World Cups have a way of changing careers; some for the better, some for the worse. On this day in 1996, Sri Lanka’s batting revolution claimed its first casualty: Manoj Prabhakar.

India, playing at home in Delhi, had put up a strong total of 271/3, thanks to a masterful 137 from Sachin Tendulkar...

But Sri Lanka, playing a brand of cricket that felt like it belonged to another era, came out swinging. Sanath Jayasuriya blazed 79 & Romesh Kaluwitharana added 26 of 16 deliveries. It was chaos for India's bowlers...

Prabhakar, a seasoned player with over a decade of experience, bore the brunt of it.
Ironically while batting, Prabhakar laboured to score 7 runs in 35 deliveries but His first two overs vanished for 33 runs, forcing him to abandon pace & try off-spin. The crowd, unimpressed, turned on their own. By the next match, he was out of the squad. Shortly after, he retired...

Jayasuriya would repeat this carnage in the quarter-final against England, forcing Phil DeFreitas to do the same; ditch pace & bowl spin. But while DeFreitas carried on, Prabhakar never played for India again...

Stats won’t tell you this, but this was the moment the world realized cricket had changed. And Jayasuriya was the one rewriting the rules...

[Abhishek AB @ABsay_ek]

On This Day in 1983: Viv Richards Turns a Grind into a Blitz at Kingston

For four & a half days, the first Test between India & West Indies at Kingston had been a slow, hard-fought battle. India posted 251 in 88 overs, West Indies eked out a 3-run lead with 254 in 117 overs & India crawled to 174 in 85 overs.

At Tea on the final day, everyone thought it was heading for a dull draw. India were 164 ahead with four wickets in hand. Then Andy Roberts ran through the lower order, bundling them out for just 1 more run. But even with that collapse, West Indies were left chasing 172 in 26 overs; almost 7 run per over in an era of no fielding restrictions on a 5th day pitch...

Enter Viv Richards!
Nursing a shoulder injury, he walked in at 65/2 & changed the script in an instant. His first scoring shot? A six.
What followed was pure carnage; 61 off 36 balls, 5 fours, 4 sixes. Mohinder Amarnath, who got his wicket, felt the heat of his bat. His brief spell reading 2.2 overs, 34 runs, 2 wickets.

Jeff Dujon finished it off with another six, sealing victory with four wickets & four balls to spare. A game that seemed destined for a draw had been turned on its head in a matter of minutes. On that day in Kingston, Viv Richards once again proved why he wasn’t just a batsman; he was a force of nature...

[Chaminda Dias @chami9539]

Whether it’s a series of bombs on Easter Sunday or a wave of targeted killings, the motive is the same: destabilization, fear, and chaos.

And every time, who emerges as the beneficiary, ready to take power and to save the nation?

The pattern is clear. The hand behind the trigger is the same.

Don't take the bait.

#SriLanka
#nomorefamilyrule
#EnoughIsEnough

[Rajith Nipuna @RajithNipuna]

@TheCinesthetic

[Ranul Perera @diyasenn]

Ladies, beware this of pervert when you are using @Uber in Colombo. This sickening piece of dirt had sent these messages to my wife right before ending the trip. She has lodged a complaint and Uber is "reviewing" it so far. Idk whether there will be any actual action. Be safe.

[Rajith Nipuna @RajithNipuna]

@conspiracy_maxi @AP 😂

[Cricinfo @cricinfo]

➡️ The grudge match Sri Lanka won #OTD in 1999 after years of resentment and antipathy boiled over in one of the most foul-tempered cricket matches ever played accompanied by a sublime Jayawardene hundred and a chase for the ages 🍿

🔗 https://t.co/AVAo6S0t09

[Rajith Nipuna @RajithNipuna]

@NewsWireLK