How fisherman’s son Fernando became Sri Lanka’s unlikely star of seam

Sri Lankan cricket is renowned for producing exotic spin bowlers. No one had previously delivered a ball in the way Muttiah Muralitharan did, and probably never will again, and Ajantha Mendis briefly had great success flicking the ball out of the front of his hand, baffling batsmen as to which way it was going to nip.
Even in this match, they possess the extraordinarily versatile Kamindu Mendis, who can bowl with both right and left arm. In two exploratory overs late on this second evening, he confined himself to off breaks, but there is time yet for him to switch hands.
Yet the island’s great talent is actually for harnessing the most gloriously gifted individuals across various disciplines. Many of their seam bowlers have been unorthodox in one way or another — Lasith Malinga’s round-arm swerve bowling was every bit as distinctive in style as Murali’s spin — and Asitha Fernando, the pick of Sri Lanka’s bowlers in this match, is another novel operator. Short and stocky, standing no more than 5ft 6in, he does not have the cut of a fast bowler.
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Fernando, 27, hails from Katuneriya, north of the main airport that is itself well north of the capital Colombo, the son of a fisherman in an area with no real cricketing infrastructure. Sri Lanka’s rise as a force in the 1990s was partly built on the recruitment of talent from outside the main areas — Sanath Jayasuriya was the first major figure to come from Matara — but that does not mean it is easy for youngsters in far-flung areas to force their way to the top.
Fernando’s family were not well off. Asitha developed his strength and resourcefulness from going out on the boat with his father in rough seas to help bring in the catch. He started out playing softball cricket and for a long time never really got his hands on a new ball because his school could not afford to provide them. His main skill today remains with the old ball, with the ability to make it reverse-swing.
His smooth, skiddy action was noted by a coach at his local St Sebastian’s College and his first national recognition arrived with selection for a Sri Lanka Under-17 tour of England. Offers of scholarships to some of the leading colleges followed but he declined to leave home.
Another breakthrough came at the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh in 2016 when he finished as Sri Lanka’s leading bowler. One of his victims was the England opener Dan Lawrence, a dismissal he thought he had reprised here when Lawrence was given out lbw only for the decision to be overturned on review.
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One ODI appearance aside, he did not start to feature regularly in the national teams until 2021 but it was not until Chris Silverwood took over as head coach in May 2022 that he really emerged as a Test bowler. During a Test in Bangladesh, Silverwood challenged him to dig deeper and he responded by breaking a century stand that was threatening to derail his side’s chances; a four-wicket burst meant that he became the first Sri Lanka right-arm fast bowler to claim ten in a Test.
The mongrel that Silverwood wanted to see in his personality remains present, as was seen two weeks ago during Sri Lanka’s ODI series against India in Colombo when he engaged in a lively exchange of words with Virat Kohli during what was a rough series for India’s star batsman. Fernando did not dismiss him but Kohli did not seem to appreciate the advice Fernando dispensed after finding his outside edge.
As is common with many of Sri Lanka’s most distinctive players, Fernando received little formal coaching in his early years, and although this worked to the advantage of his bowling it probably contributed to his limitations as a batsman.
In a career spanning 71 first-class matches, he has scored only 248 runs at an average of 5.06 with a highest score of 30 — a freewheeling innings, with five fours and a six, against the England Lions in Pallekelle in 2017 — the exception that very much proves the rule.
His proudest moment with the bat was hitting ten off three balls to win a tight game against Bangladesh in an Asia Cup T20 semi-final in 2022, in a tournament Sri Lanka went on to win.
He is one of only 11 cricketers in Test history, with more than 45 wickets to their name, who have more wickets than runs.
He played two championship matches for Nottinghamshire at the end of last season — one of the games was at Old Trafford, which must have been useful reconnaissance for this match — and his ambition is to return to play a full season for a county next summer when Sri Lanka’s schedule is pretty clear. A good series here could serve him well.