Sonal Dinusha was struggling against the short ball and was desperate for a solution. The diminutive batter was with Sri Lanka A in Darwin in July 2025 when Australia A's tall pace attack began peppering him with bouncers. Mitchell Perry, Liam Scott and Henry Thornton all stood over six feet tall and could bowl fast and short. And they did.
Dinusha's response was quick. He spoke to his coaches, worked out a tactical plan and, more importantly, spent the session break facing throwdowns designed to replicate the problem he was encountering.
"They were bowling bouncers, he was kind of struggling. So we just went, threw a few balls, had a chat with him, just sorted out what he was going to do, the tactical part of it. And then he went on," Avishka Gunawardene, then the Sri Lanka A coach, tells Cricbuzz.
Dinusha scored a 145-ball 105 in the first innings of the first unofficial Test on that tour, followed by a 191-ball 88 in the second fixture. It was his first time batting in Australia. But to the coaches who had watched him to that point, none of it was surprising. This was typical Dinusha: identify a problem, work out a solution and get on with it.
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