Former Sri Lanka Under-19 captain shot dead at home in front of family ahead of India's tour

Former Sri Lankan cricketer Dhammika Niroshana who captained the Under-19 team was shot dead at his residence on July 16 night at his residence in Ambalangoda, a small town in Galle district. 
 

As per local police, Niroshana was with his wife and two children when he was shot at by the unidentified person. The investigation is underway but the reason behind the murder in cold-blood. The suspect had a 12-bore firearm.
 

Niroshana’s career

The right-arm pacer was a promising talent as a youngster. He captained the Under-19 team of Sri Lanka in 10 games and played alongside big names like Fareveez Maharoof, Angelo Mathews and Upul Tharanga.

He captained Sri Lanka in the ICC Under-19 World Cup 2002 in New Zealand. He took seven wickets from six games at an average of 19.28. His best came against Pakistan when he bagged three wickets for 44 runs. Two of his three wickets were skipper Salman Butt and pacer Umar Gul. But his bowling effort went in vain as Sri Lanka lost the game by five runs in the run chase of 185.

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Niroshana played 12 First-Class matches and eight List A matches. He has 19 wickets with red-ball and five wickets in white-ball cricket. He was handy with the bat down the order with 269 runs from 19 innings in red-ball cricket.

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However, a few years after making his First-Class debut, his career could not take off. He made his last List A appearance in December 2004.

India to tour Sri Lanka for limited-overs series

India's new head coach Gautam Gambhir's first assignment will be the three-T20I and ODI series against Sri Lanka. India are yet to announce their squad for the tour and confirm the captain of the T20I side after Rohit Sharma's retirement from the format. Suryakumar Yadav may don the captaincy hat ahead of Hardik Pandya who was vice-captain in T20 World Cup 2024. The T20I series will be played from July 27 to 30 whereas the ODI series is scheduled from August 2 to 7.
 

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