Marvan Atapattu (born 22 November 1970 in Kalutara) captained Sri Lanka until a back injury forced him to miss the England series in May 2006 where Mahela Jayawardene took over as Test and ODI captain.
He is a technically sound and correct batsman, although he occasionally shows an initial tendency to chop inswinging deliveries back onto the stumps. Debuting his test carrear in November 1990 just after his 20th birthday, his first six innings yielded five measly ducks and a 1, but his supporters insist that these debut-innings duck put him along the lines of great batsmen such as Michael Atherton, Len Hutton, Saeed Anwar, Graham Gooch, and Wasim Akram, who all made debut-innings ducks and then went on to score at least 2500 Test runs. After this horrific start in his first three matches, he didn’t score above 29 in his next eleven innings, and finally hit his first Test century in his 10th match seven years after his debut. As a result of his poor start, he has 22 Test-match career ducks and 4 pairs (two ducks in a single match), both records for a top-order batsman. However once he’s settled, he is difficult to get out and has gone on to score six double centuries, including a highest score of 249. Only three other batsmen have made more Test double centuries: Wally Hammond with seven, Brian Lara with eight and Don Bradman with leading twelve. His game has been improving steadily and his Test average is 38.90 and his one-day international average is 37.76 (as of 11th August 2006). A skillful fielder with an accurate throw, since the 1999 Cricket World Cup, he had effected the second highest number of run-outs in ODI cricket of any fieldsman, with the seventh highest success rate.
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