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Ranatunga announces retirement from Test cricket |
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July 21, 2000 Arjuna Ranatunga, Sri Lanka's most capped Test player and the country's most successful captain, announced his retirement from the game on Thursday morning. He will stop playing cricket after the end of the current series with South Africa. During recent weeks, there has been a lot of speculation concerning the future of the 37-year-old left hander, who has been in fine form during the recently completed series against Pakistan, scoring two half centuries in the Galle Test match. Prior to the Annual General Meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL), there were rumours in the Daily Mirror, a local Sri Lankan newspaper, that he was going to stand for the position of President. These rumours were eventually proved to be unfounded as he declared a desire to play on as long as he was performing. Since then he has become increasingly associated with the emergence of a new political party called the Sinhala Urumaya, which was launched only a few months ago. He has so far denied that he intends to be a candidate in the general elections, which are due in the next few months. Ranatunga, who scored a half century in Sri Lanka's inaugural Test match in 1982 and also played in the centenary Test match at the Sinhalese Sports Club, is generally given credit as the man who transformed Sri Lanka from Test minnows into world champions in the 1996 World Cup. It is clear that whatever he does decide to do, he is sure to be remembered, by millions of cricket lovers all around the world, as a canny tactician, a world class batsmen and wonderful ambassador for Sri Lankan cricket. |