Dr Churchill Hector Gunasekara (27 July 1894 – 16 May 1969) was a Ceylonese

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

er. He was the first person from his country to play for an English county, representing

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

from 1919 to 1922. He was widely regarded as the best fielder in county cricket at the time. Gunasekara was educated at Royal College in Colombo where he was captain of the cricket team and achieved colours in both athletics and football. He moved to England in order to study medicine at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and excelled again at sports, only missing out on a Blue due to the outbreak of the War. In 1919 he made his first-class debut for Middlesex and went on to have a good all-round Championship season, with 36 wickets at 27.72 and 351 runs at 21.93. Despite batting at nine, he top scored for Middlesex in the first innings of their match against

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

at Kennington Oval with 88 not out. His best performance with the ball came against

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

where he dismissed their last five batsmen to finish with 5/15. The following summer he was part of Middlesex's successful campaign for the 1920 County Championship. He didn't play at all in 1921 but returned in 1922 for one final season. Having completed his degree, Gunasekara returned to Ceylon and became captain of his country's cricket team. He captained Ceylon's first overseas touring team, to India in 1932–33, but was called back to Ceylon during the tour in his capacity as Chief Medical Officer of Health, Colombo Municipality, in order to deal with a

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (W ...

outbreak, and was absent during the two matches against

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, when Ed Kelaart captained the team in his absence. He played 10 first-class matches in total for various Ceylonese representative sides and also captained one in a non-first-class fixture against

Don Bradman Sir Donald George Bradman (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), nicknamed "The Don", was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. His cricketing successes have been claimed by Shane ...

's Australians. He also represented Ceylon at

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

, playing against the visiting New Zealanders who were on their way to England in 1933 to play in the

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is organised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and contested annually between teams from over 150 competing countries, making it the world's largest annual ...

.S. S. Perera, p. 441. Gunasekara's son Channa and four of his nephews, including C. I. Gunesekera, also played first-class cricket for Ceylon.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gunasekara, Churchill 1894 births 1969 deaths Sri Lankan cricketers All-Ceylon cricketers Sri Lankan male tennis players Middlesex cricketers Sri Lankan expatriate cricketers in England Alumni of Royal College, Colombo Sinhalese people Sri Lankan medical doctors Alumni of the University of Cambridge Gentlemen of the South cricketers H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers Cricketers from Colombo