Thissara Perera had a bullet train engine, with an out-of-control break in it. And he traveled with his wife as the train guard, who was accused to be the one in control of the seemingly out-of-control break secretly.
Perera was probably that unique player whom Sri Lanka never had before or after. The hard-hitting fast bowler - the gonna be Botham, gonna be Freddy, gonna be Watson, gonna be Klusener, which he never gotta be.
Of all players with 2000+ ODI runs he has the 4th best strike rate of 112+. He was a pretty good bowler as well, with the capacity to play as a permanent bowler, with pace, bounce, swing, etc. In any of these skills, he has shown immense promise and sporadic match-winning performances. But then again, it never connected to consistent performance. And when things went wrong they really went wrong. Perera stood looking stupid in the middle.
Add to that the controversy of conflicts with players, ugly social media politics for captaincy, wife involvements of infamous comments on colleagues, and whatnot.
So finally he has retired.
I think he could have been a great player for SL - that hard-hitting fast bowler - had he had a different attitude and discipline into the game.
I am in a way happy that he retired. On one side, his sporadic performances embedded in near betrayal failures were so harmful to white-ball cricket that was attempting to recover. Plus, SL would not mind one mercenary player - the Andre Russel which he can be - who plays in leagues around the world and brings a sorta sole representation for the country.
Money may clear lethargy that he seemed to bring about every now and then. And money will keep the distracting family members also out.
Long live, bat and bowl Thisara Perera in all world leagues carrying the lion under the franchise jersey.
PS: I must say I missed one such player. Athula Samarasekara. He played so long ago and we have little idea about his pace, but the look of big Sam suggests that he was faster. Sadly he played 15 years too early that the game was not intelligent to pick his natural style.
And another - Suresh Perera.
