Johanne Abeyratne Samarasekera (born 22 February 1968) is a former Sri Lankan-born

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played for the

United Arab Emirates national cricket team The United Arab Emirates national cricket team ( ar, فريق الإمارات الوطني للكريكيت) is the team that represents the United Arab Emirates in international cricket. They are governed by the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) w ...

. After playing twelve first-class games for his native Colombo in 1988–89 to 1989, Samarasekera emigrated to the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

. He made the national side for the 1994 Pepsi Austral-Asia Cup in

Sharjah Sharjah (; ar, ٱلشَّارقَة ', Gulf Arabic: ''aš-Šārja'') is the third-most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, after Dubai and Abu Dhabi, forming part of the Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman metropolitan area. Sharjah is the capital o ...

, where he played in his first two

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

s, and he also competed for the UAE in the 1994

ICC Trophy The ICC World Cup Qualifier (previously called the ICC Trophy and officially known as the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup Qualifier) is a One-Day International (ODI) cricket tournament that serves as the culmination of the Cricket World Cup qualifi ...

, where he was named best bowler of the tournament, having taken 18 wickets. After playing in the 1995–96 Interface Cup, a

List A List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

competition also involving A sides from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, he was selected for the UAE in the 1996 World Cup. Samarasekera fared poorly in that competition and was not selected for the national side again. He played 7 ODIs for the UAE and scored 124 runs at an average of 31.00; his highest score was 47. He also bagged 4 wickets for 236 runs with a best bowling of 1/17 and economy rate of 4.82

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* 1968 births Living people Sri Lankan cricketers Emirati cricketers Colombo Cricket Club cricketers United Arab Emirates One Day International cricketers Cricketers from Colombo Sri Lankan emigrants to the United Arab Emirates Sri Lankan expatriate sportspeople in the United Arab Emirates {{SriLanka-cricket-bio-1960s-stub