Crishan Kalugamage picke up three wickets. (Photo Credits: AFP)
Italy spinner Crishan Kalugamage made headlines on Thursday when he rattled the Nepal’s batting unit to scalp three wickets for just 18 runs in 4 overs. The leg-spinner’s dismissals included the wickets of captain Rohit Paudel, experienced batter Dipendra Singh Airee and Gulsan Jha. A Shane Warne and Lautaro Martinez fan, Kalugamage is now making a name for himself at the highest level.
Crishan Kalugamage moved from Sri Lanka to Italy with his parents when he was a teenager, nearly twenty years ago. Today, he works at a pizzeria in Lucca, a beautiful city in the Tuscany region. Alongside his job, he has another great passion — cricket. He often jokes that pizza-making and bowling have something in common. “It’s all about the fingertips,” he says with a smile.
Kalugamage is a right-arm bowler and plays for Roma Cricket Club, one of the oldest cricket clubs in Italy. However, balancing cricket and work has not been easy for him. In Italy, Sunday is one of the busiest days for restaurants. At the same time, many cricket matches are played on Sundays. Because of this clash, he has struggled to keep steady jobs.
“I lost a lot of jobs,” Kalugamage told BBC Sport. “Sunday is a very busy day. Many bosses don’t like it when you miss work to play cricket.”
Despite these challenges, he continues to work hard on his game. He is currently learning from John Davison, whom Australian cricketer Nathan Lyon once called “the best spin coach in the world.”
For now, Kalugamage’s main focus is his job at the restaurant. But he still dreams of making cricket his full-time career one day. “Now, my main job is in the restaurant. After the World Cup, we’ll see if I have a chance to play somewhere. Hopefully, in the future, it’s only cricket,” he told ESPNcricinfo.
While he went wicketless in the first match against Scotland, Crishan Kalugamage bagged three in the match against Nepal. In 19 T20Is, the spinner has 20 wickets to his name and bowls at an impressive economy of 6.60. In List A matches, Kalugamage has 22 wickets in 13 games to his name.
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