Brendon Kuruppu - The Opener who wore his pads for 5 days

Brendon Kuruppu played only 4 Test matches, but the number of records he set in the very first time he batted is truly a remarkable one for many reasons!

Born on this day in 1962, he started playing Cricket at Wesley College and after the 8th Grade, moved to Ananda College where he played for the 1st XI team from 1975 to 1980 and subsequently the Sri Lanka U19 team.

He was talented in other sports as well, like Table Tennis and Hockey but Cricket was where he made a name for himself. Below is a picture of him with the school team in 1980, seated alongside another familiar face on the right.

Ananda College Team Photo 1980 (Brendon Kuruppu seated 3rd from the left)

The Replacement Keeper

By the age of 21, he was part of the 1983 World Cup squad where he made his ODI debut but it took a few more years to play Test Cricket due to his style of batting and received his Test cap in 1987 in place of Guy De Alwis, the regular keeper.

In fact, he was branded as a 'One Day Slogger' by the selectors at the time but when he finally got the chance to play for the Test team, Brendon had other plans.

The Marathon Knock of 777 minutes

Long story short, Brendon Kuruppu in his very first innings as a Test Cricketer, despite his reputation for scoring quickly with the white ball, batted slowly. How slow? He batted for 777 minutes, which is 3 minutes short of 13 hours and established numerous records by the end of his marathon knock.

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