Dulip Prasanna Samaraweera (born 12 February 1972) is a former Sri Lankan

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who played in seven Test matches and five

One Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

s for his country from 1993 to 1995. He was a right-handed opening batsmen and occasional right arm off-spinner.

Family

His younger brother

Thilan Samaraweera Thilan Thusara Samaraweera (; born 22 September 1976) is a former Sri Lankan international cricketer. Samaraweera played international cricket for Sri Lanka. Known as Sri Lanka's crisis man and for his slow strike rate, He is also nicknamed “Bu ...

is also a former Test, ODI and T20I player of the Sri Lankan national cricket team. His brother in law

Bathiya Perera Wagawattage Maithree Bathiya Perera (born 28 April 1977) is a former Sri Lankan first class cricketer. A right-handed batsman and part-time leg break bowler, he has represented Sri Lanka A at international level. Perera impressed in the under ...

is also a former first class cricketer of Sri Lanka.

Domestic career

Playing for the Colts Cricket Club in Sri Lanka, Samaraweera made his first class debut in the 1991-92 season. He made his

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debut on 17 August 2004, for Colts Cricket Club in the

2004 SLC Twenty20 Tournament The 2004 SLC Twenty20 Tournament is the 1st season of the official Twenty20 domestic cricket competition in Sri Lanka. 15 teams in total, five representing four provinces of Sri Lanka Provinces (; ) are the first level administrative divis ...

. He continued his first-class career for Colts until retiring in 2003. A strike rate of 53 in ODIs and 26 in Tests indicated that he was a dour player who did not score quickly. Although he never bowled at international level, he had 41 wickets to his name at first class level with an excellent average of 20. He scored over 7000 runs at first-class level including 16 centuries and 34 half centuries but never established himself at international level.

International career

He was selected for the ODI team for his debut against the

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in November 1993, in which he only managed three runs. He played four more times, aggregating 91 runs and making his top-scoring of 49 in a successful run-chase against

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in early 1994. Despite top-scoring, he never played ODIs for Sri Lanka again. He made his Test debut against the West Indies at

Moratuwa Moratuwa () is a large municipality on the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka, near Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia. It is situated on the Galle–Colombo (Galle road) main highway, south of the centre of Colombo. Moratuwa is surrounded on three sides ...

in December 1993, after replacing Chandika Hathurusingha as an opener. He made a slow 16 from 107 balls on debut. He made his top score of 42 in his next Test against India in

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and played the whole India series, before touring New Zealand in early 1995 when he played his final two Test matches. He was dropped, ending his international career, in which he failed to pass 50 in any of his 14 innings.

Coaching Career

Samaraweera was named interim head coach of the Victorian women's team in November 2023, and appointed to the full-time role in May in 2024. He resigned less than a fortnight later following a disagreement over the appointment of an assistant batting coach. Samaraweera had requested the appointment of his brother, Thilan Samaraweera, to fill the assistant batting coach role, but this request was declined based on Cricket Victoria's policy that one relative should not report to another. On 19 September 2024 Samaraweera was banned from holding any position within Australian cricket for 20 years after he was found to have committed a serious breach of the Cricket Australia code of conduct.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Samaraweera, Dulip 1972 births Living people Alumni of Ananda College Sri Lanka Test cricketers Sri Lanka One Day International cricketers Sri Lankan cricketers Basnahira North cricketers Basnahira South cricketers Colts Cricket Club cricketers Place of birth missing (living people)