Roshan Abeysinghe didn’t need much. Just a short video on a phone. In it, a 20-year-old bowled to three sticks on dry land. Lean figure. Rhythmic run-up. No pitch, no opposition, no gallery. And no shoes worth the name — what covered his feet was broken in ways shoes shouldn’t be. The city was Ratnapura. The land of rubies and sapphires. The boy’s name was Eshan Malinga.
Chamila Gamage, a renowned fast bowling coach in Sri Lanka, had stumbled on him by chance. There was no club. No team. Just the boy and the stumps and that run-up. Gamage sent the video to Abeysinghe with a simple request: give him a game at Ragama Cricket Club.
“He was bowling with a broken pair of shoes,” Abeysinghe says. He is the president of Ragama CC and a respected voice in Sri Lanka cricket. He had watched the video once. That was enough.
Eshan had, by then, already announced himself in a small way. A private initiative had gone looking for the fastest bowler on the island, throwing open the contest to all comers. Thousands turned up. Eshan won it without discussion as he was the quickest of the lot. But competitive cricket had no place for him.
Written by: Venkata Krishna B
6 min readApr 22, 2026 06:18 PM IST
Eshan Malinga Sunrisers Hyderabad IPLEshan Malinga of Sunrisers Hyderabad celebrates the wicket of Tristan Stubbs of Delhi Capitals during the Match 31 of the TATA Indian Premier League 2026 between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Capitals at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad, India, on April 21, 2026. (CREIMAS)
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Roshan Abeysinghe didn’t need much. Just a short video on a phone. In it, a 20-year-old bowled to three sticks on dry land. Lean figure. Rhythmic run-up. No pitch, no opposition, no gallery. And no shoes worth the name — what covered his feet was broken in ways shoes shouldn’t be. The city was Ratnapura. The land of rubies and sapphires. The boy’s name was Eshan Malinga.
Chamila Gamage, a renowned fast bowling coach in Sri Lanka, had stumbled on him by chance. There was no club. No team. Just the boy and the stumps and that run-up. Gamage sent the video to Abeysinghe with a simple request: give him a game at Ragama Cricket Club.
“He was bowling with a broken pair of shoes,” Abeysinghe says. He is the president of Ragama CC and a respected voice in Sri Lanka cricket. He had watched the video once. That was enough.
Eshan had, by then, already announced himself in a small way. A private initiative had gone looking for the fastest bowler on the island, throwing open the contest to all comers. Thousands turned up. Eshan won it without discussion as he was the quickest of the lot. But competitive cricket had no place for him.
“He came from a humble background,” Abeysinghe says. “When Chamila sent him to us, we didn’t have second thoughts. He clearly had potential. And even by then, he had a reputation for being the fastest. When he came, we could see how quick he was. He had a good rhythmic action and the ingredients that make a fast bowler.”
Abeysinghe put him in the Under-23 side. The career had barely started before it stopped due to a back injury. Then a year of absence — Eshan, being from the countryside, sought native treatment first, ayurveda over hospitals, which Abeysinghe understood without judgment. He came back. One delivery in the nets. The same injury again.
Ragama sent him to Sri Lanka’s High Performance Centre to understand what they were dealing with. Then came prolonged treatment and rehabilitation at a private facility, with the club covering the expenses. Eshan had no central contract. There was no system to catch him. Ragama became his system.
“Since he wasn’t a central contracted player, the SLC couldn’t help much,” Abeysinghe says. “But we kept the national selectors in the loop about Eshan. His talent was obvious to see.”
When he recovered, they put him back in the Under-23 side. A First-Class debut followed. Then the national cap.