Lasith Malinga has time and again been trolled for his poor fitness level. Each time he fails to deliver, online trolls take down the yorker king.
However, Malinga has bounced back on each of these occasions to deliver for his team and Friday evening was just another instance.
The 35-year-old bowled one of the finest spells of his career at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 as he finished with impressive figures of 10-1-43-4 against England in Leeds.
His efforts not only helped Sri Lanka fold England out for just 212 – 20 runs less than the Islanders’ 232/9 – but also saw them stay alive in the 10-nation tournament.
Malinga, once again, became a topic of discussion on social media, with many fans and expert heaping praise on his match-winning performance.
Former Sri Lanka cricketer Mahela Jayawardene, too, congratulated him on Instagram but not in a way his ex-teammate would have fancied.
Jayawardene posted a picture of Malinga, in which the latter’s pot belly was on display. Interestingly, the same snap had gone viral not very long ago.
“Well bowled Mali!!! Thought I would share the most talked about picture last week for all you fans,” he captioned the picture, much to the amusement of his 191K followers.
After the win against England, Sri Lanka skipper Dimuth Karunaratne also heaped praise for Malinga, who managed to become the fourth bowler ever to complete 50 World Cup dismissals with his four-for in Leeds.
“I think he’s [Malinga] a legend. He knows what he has to do. Whatever he does, he is doing his best, so that is why I said, if he wants to go home and come back, that’s fine. So I think he did that and he came back again and he gave a good example for the rest of the guys. He just keeps doing what he knows, that is the main thing, the basic things,” he said.
