Lasith Malinga

Separamadu Lasith Malinga, born on August 28, 1983 in Galle, Sri Lanka, is a Sri Lankan cricketer who plays in most test, warm-up and T20 matches for the Sri Lankan national team. He is sometimes referred to as the Sri Lankan Muttu (derived from his initials SLM), as well as Slinger Malinga, due to his largely unorthodox bowling action.

His unique bowling action, which no-one else is known to use except him, involves a side-arm chucking action, just as one might slap someone in the face. There does remain some doubt as to the coinage of his nickname of 'Slinger Malinga'. Most say that it is due to his 'sling-like' bowling action; however some of his closer friends, including his brother, claim that as a child, he used to practise this action so much that once he twisted his elbow, and had to wear a sling for five months after this. Malinga is the most recent addition to a whole host of Sri Lankan bowlers, including Muralitharan, Jayawardene and Mendis, whose bowling actions have been viewed as highly controversial. Many prominent bowlers and ex-bowlers, such as Alan Donald, Jonty Rhodes, Ollie Seechun and the Da Silva brothers Aravinda and Chamara have vociferously spoken out against this action. Nevertheless, the ICC approved of his action, despite the wishes of the BCCSL; it is however alleged that the approval is wholly dependent on the annual payment of a hefty sum of several thousand Sri Lankan rupees by Malinga to the ICC, though both parties have strenuously denied the existence of such a hefty payment.

The usage of such a strange bowling action has proved effective against many batsmen, who are often deceived and deluded by his misleading deliveries, which include in-swingers, out-swingers, doosras, reverse-swingers and bouncers. He has also developed his own style of leg-break, which involves an extra-fast delivery bowled straight at the batsmens' feet. Many batsmen have fallen prey to this leg-break, being trapped lbw or pulling to square leg. A few - famously Sanjay Romochondron in a test match against Bangladesh in 1997 - have had their legs literally broken by the ferocity of such a delivery. Again, several batsmen have appealed to the ICC to ban this leg-break delivery, but were duly turned down by the ICC, again reportedly due to the annual fee paid by Malinga.

In all forms of the game, Malinga has taken nearly 200 wickets. Although this might seem a reasonably high figure, his commitment to his bowling has been queried in the past, due to the fact that he has scored more than double this number of runs, leading to critics stating that he focuses too much on his batting, despite being a specialist bowler. This has resulted in him being dropped from the test squad, although he continues to feature regularly in the warm-up and ODI squads for his country.