Dennis Keith Lillee, the former bowling magician of Australian cricket team was born on 18 July, 1949 in Subiaco, Western Australia and was known for his fiery temperament, ‘never-say-die’ attitude and popularity with the fans. Lillee was an extremely quick bowler and by the time of his retirement from international cricket in 1984 he had become the then world record holder for most Test wickets showing 355 batsmen the way back to pavilion.

Lillee made his debut in the first-class cricket at the age of 20 in 1970 and impressed with his raw pace. His Test debut happened in the sixth Ashes Test at Adelaide. Lillee was selected as Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year for 1973.

In the England tour in 1975 at the inaugural World Cup he captured eight wickets in five matches, including 5/34 against Pakistan at Leeds. He along with Jeff Thomson maintained a powerful and fiery bowling pair that caused panic in the opposite side. Lillee took 37 wickets in six Tests against New Zealand in 1980-81 and was the leading bowler in the World Series Cup for the second successive season.

Bowling as a first-change, Lillee had an uneventful tour of New Zealand in March and April 1982 before suffering a serious knee injury in the first Ashes Test at the WACA Ground in November of the same year. This forced him to miss the rest of the series and Australia’s 2–1 victory, which reclaimed the Ashes. Returning to the team for the latter stages of the World Series Cup, Lillee was no longer an automatic choice to take the new ball. Nevertheless, his 11 wickets in six ODIs helped Australia win the tournament with a victory over New Zealand in the final.

Throughout his Australian career Lillee was also famous for his partnership with wicketkeeper Rod Marsh. The scorecard entry ‘c Marsh b Lillee’ appeared 95 times in Tests, a partnership record between wicketkeeper and bowler still unbroken.

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Born as Pinnaduwage Aravinda de Silva on 17 October 1965 in Colombo, he is a former Sri Lankan cricketer, who is considered one of the finest batsmen produced by the country in world cricket.

De Silva made his debut in Test cricket in 1984 at Lord’s against England. In his early part of the career he was known as a dashing but inconsistent batsman, which earned him the nickname “Mad Max” for his tendency to get out to rash shots. But later he showed up matured and aggressive batting style. He also hold the history of having a successful season of first-class cricket for the English county Kent in 1995 marked a turning point in his

career. De Silva was instrumental in Sri Lanka’s triumph in the 1996 Cricket World Cup. He also has scored a century in each innings of a Test match on two separate occasions. Once of these doubles was 138 and 105, both undismissed, against Pakistan at Colombo’s Sinhalese Sports Club in April 1997. De Silva’s highest test score of 267 happened at Basin Reserve in 1991 against New Zealand. He retired from international cricket in 2003.

Aravinda De Silva joined the English county side Kent in April 1995 after Carl Hooper left Kent to join the West Indies team for the summer. He showed an elegant batting performance in the county cricket owning a couple of brilliant scores taking kent to wins in a row. He was the third most prolific batsman of the County Championship in 1995 after Mark Ramprakash and Nasser Hussain with 1661 runs at an average of 59.32 and six centuries including the highest score of the season, 255.

One of the best performances from him came in the 1996 World Cup Final against Australia, where he took 3 wickets for 42 runs, two catches and then followed that with 107 not out with the bat to secure Sri Lanka a convincing 7 wicket victory. He was also chosen for the Man of the Match award. De Silva was recognized by Wisden in 2002 as the eight most significant batting performance in ODI cricket while his bowling was ranked 82nd in Wisden top 100 bowling chart.

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