For most of his career, Aravinda de Silva was part of a below-par Sri Lanka team that was often written off in most matches. Minnows, they were called. But with determination, skill and a lot of aggression, de Silva was instrumental in winning the minnows the biggest prize in cricket.

De Silva was arguably one of the most talented batsmen of his era. Alongside peers like Sachin Tendulkar, Mark Waugh and Brian Lara, de Silva carved out a place for himself in the 1990s. "Mad Max" as he was known thanks to his tendency of playing wild shots early in his career, came into his own well and truly in the mid-1990s and by the time the Sri Lankans launched their bid for the 1996 World Cup, de Silva was their main weapon.

Aravinda made his World Cup debut in the 1987 edition of the tournament. Initially, success was hard to come by and by the time the 1996 World Cup came about, he had only one score of 50-plus in 14 World Cup matches. As captain of the 192 campaign, there was widespread belief that the burden of captaincy affected his batting. And Aravinda agrees, "When I go out there I basically do the same thing, I keep playing the way I know best -- attacking from the start and taking the attack to the bowlers. When I got the captaincy there were a lot of other problems in the team. It was not a long stint. So I think it wasn't the best time for me. But later on it would have been an ideal opportunity. I would have loved leading the team."

The 1996 World Cup offered Aravinda a chance to play mostly at home and the farthest he played was in Lahore in the final.

So complete was his domination in 1996 that even the Australians were forced to concede that Aravinda was perhaps playing in another zone altogether. When Sri Lanka won the World Cup, he was only the second player ever to score a hundred in the final of the World Cup.

But it was his semi-final innings that was more memorable. He walked in to bat with Sri Lanka tottering at 2 for 1 and both openers back in the hut. The counterattack he led was so precise, lethal and yet beautiful, that India could never recover. He did the same thing to Australia in the final too! Sri Lanka found themselves in a spot of bother at 2 for 23 with 242 to win. Aravinda paired with Asanka Gurusinha and then captain Arjuna Ranatunga to see Sri Lanka home and announce their arrival in the big league.

Subsequent World Cups were hardly as successful and in defence of Sri Lanka's title in 1999, Aravinda could manage only 73 runs in five matches with a best of 56 against India. He fared marginally better in 2003, scoring 267 runs in 10 matches as Sri Lanka made it to the semi-final, but it was clear that by this time, he was running out of steam. A good bowling effort in the semi-final did offer some hope that Aravinda may just get the perfect swansong, but it was not to be.

He was run out in his last international innings for 11. And he was ready to cop the blame too. "I think we ought to be blamed, I feel we should have gone on and made 212 which was a very good total to chase," he said after Sri Lanka had lost by 48 runs. There is also perhaps a symbolic quality to the way he ended his career through a run out.

PHOTO © AP