Russel Premakumaran Arnold (
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nati ...
: ரசல் பிரேமகுமரன் ஆனோல்ட், born 25 October 1973), or Russel Arnold, is a former
Sri Lankan 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 of
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nati ...
descent, who played all forms of the game. He played as the finisher role in the Sri Lankan team batting down the order at international level. Arnold currently works as an international commentator. He was the first
Twenty20 International
A Twenty20 International (T20I) is a form of cricket, played between two of the international members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), in which each team faces a maximum of twenty overs. The matches have top-class status and are the ...
cap for Sri Lanka as he was part of Sri Lanka's first ever T20I team. He retired from cricket in 2007 after playing the final in
2007 ICC Cricket World Cup
The 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup was the ninth Cricket World Cup, a One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament that took place in the West Indies from 13 March to 28 April 2007. There were a total of 51 matches played, three fewer than at the ...
.
Early life
Arnold was encouraged to take the sport of cricket by his grandfather. He played school cricket at the
St. Peter's College, Colombo
St. Peter's College ( Sinhala: සාන්ත පීතර විදුහල, Tamil: செயிண்ட் பீட்டர் கல்லூரி) is a Roman Catholic boys-only primary to secondary (inclusive) school in the Bambalapitiya ...
where he received his primary and secondary education. He played for
Sri Lanka Under19 cricket team and impressed in the tour of England in a 3 match test series in 1992 where he scored 242 runs at the average of 48.40. He first arrived to domestic cricket in 1993 at the age of 20.
International career
Arnold made his
Test
Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to:
* Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities
Arts and entertainment
* ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film
* ''Test'' (2014 film), ...
debut against
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 ...
on April and his
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 ...
debut against
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
later in the year on 6 November 1997. His test debut came as a blessing in disguise as he came as an injury replacement to
Roshan Mahanama
Deshabandu Roshan Siriwardene Mahanama ( si, රොෂාන් මහානාම; born 31 May 1966) is a former Sri Lankan cricketer and a former ICC match referee. He was a key member for 1996 Cricket World Cup winning team for Sri Lanka. ...
who was injured in a batting session in the nets.
He was initially called into the
Sri Lankan reserve squad for the home series against Pakistan in 1997 following his performances in domestic circuit.
Originally an opening batsman, Arnold has since moved down the batting order mainly due to the rise of
Marvan Atapattu
Deshabandu Marvan Samson Atapattu (born 22 November 1970) is a Sri Lankan cricket coach and former cricketer who played for 17 years for Sri Lanka. Considered one of the most technically sound batsman in his era, Atapattu has scored six double ...
.
He is most famous in the pearl island as a very versatile player, making him ideally suitable for the limited over version of the game. However, when he started his career, he was seen primarily as a solid top order batsmen where he impressed against Australia during the AIWA Cup of 1999, as well as the subsequent test series against them, where he batted at no 3. He batted at no 6 for the first time in his career during the
Coca-Cola Champions Trophy 1999
The 1999–2000 Coca-Cola Champions Trophy was a triangular ODI cricket competition held in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates from 13 to 22 October 1999. It featured the national cricket teams of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and West Indies. Its official spon ...
. The then Sri Lankan team head coach
Dav Whatmore
Davenell Frederick Whatmore (born 16 March 1954) is a Sri Lanka born Australian cricket coach and former cricketer.
A right-handed batsman, Whatmore played seven Test matches for Australia in 1979, and one One Day International in 1980. At ...
had felt that Russel could be utilised well when he plays down the order.
In an ODI match against Zimbabwe in 1999, Arnold along with
Sajeewa de Silva
Karunakalage Sajeewa Chanaka de Silva (born 11 January 1971) is a former Sri Lankan cricketer. A left-arm fast-medium bowler, he played eight Test matches and 38 One Day Internationals for Sri Lanka between 1996 and 2000. He made his Twenty2 ...
set the record for the highest 10th wicket stand for Sri Lanka in ODI history (51). During the final of the
2000–01 Sharjah Champions Trophy against India in 2000 at
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 ...
, Arnold helped
Sanath Jayasuriya
Deshabandu Sanath Teran Jayasuriya ( si, සනත් ජයසූරිය, ta, சனத் ஜெயசூர்யா; born 30 June 1969), is a former Sri Lankan cricketer and a captain. He is credited for having revolutionized one-day in ...
to post his highest individual score of 189. Sanath and Arnold had a good partnership until Sanath stumped after a brilliant 189. Russel provided good support scoring unbeaten 52 off 62 balls in the match. Sri Lanka eventually won the final by a big margin of 245 runs. He was part of the Sri Lankan team captained by Sanath Jayasuriya which won the
2002 ICC Champions Trophy
The 2002 ICC Champions Trophy was a cricket tournament that was held in Sri Lanka in 2002. It was the third edition of the ICC Champions Trophy – the first two having been known as the ICC Knock Out Tournaments. The tournament was due to be h ...
jointly with India.
Arnold's failure in the
2003 Cricket World Cup
The 2003 ICC Cricket World Cup was the eighth Cricket World Cup, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was co-hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya from 9 February to 23 March 2003. This edition of the World Cup was the f ...
saw him sidelined for many months as selectors opted to groom the youngsters into the side. However, he fought his way back into the side with a string of good scores in domestic cricket for his club,
Nondescripts. A calm and cool player in a crisis situation, Arnold has dragged Sri Lanka out of many sticky situations. He is highly valued for his gritty qualities and is considered an unselfish team man. He is considered an ideal No. 6; he is a Methodist Christian of
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nati ...
descent.
[
]
Arnold has been nicknamed "Rusty" by
Roshan Mahanama
Deshabandu Roshan Siriwardene Mahanama ( si, රොෂාන් මහානාම; born 31 May 1966) is a former Sri Lankan cricketer and a former ICC match referee. He was a key member for 1996 Cricket World Cup winning team for Sri Lanka. ...
and
Pramodya Wickramasinghe
Wickramasinghe Gallage Pramodya (born August 14, 1971), commonly known as Pramodya Wickramasinghe, is a former Sri Lankan cricketer. He was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm-fast bowler. He was regarded as one of the fastest bowlers in 199 ...
, due to it being a very common nickname for the name Russel, and for his batting style as tough and durable, though not really pretty.
His late cut shot is admired by many critics at that time where he used the shot so often to spin bowling.
Arnold made his T20I debut against England on 15 June 2006, which was incidentally Sri Lanka's first-ever T20I match. It was also his only T20I match in his career and Sri Lanka won the match by two runs.
Retirement
During April 2007 he announced, through team manager
Michael Tissera
Michael Hugh Tissera (born 23 March 1939 in Colombo) is a former Sri Lankan ODI cricketer who played in the 1975 Cricket World Cup.
School
Tissera was educated at S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia, where, initially appearing in 1954 aged fourte ...
, that he intended to retire from international cricket after the
2007 ICC Cricket World Cup
The 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup was the ninth Cricket World Cup, a One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament that took place in the West Indies from 13 March to 28 April 2007. There were a total of 51 matches played, three fewer than at the ...
final, which came as a shock to Sri Lankan cricket. He cited the pressure of too much travel as his reason.
After retirement, he played A-grade cricket in Sydney for Hornsby District Cricket Club and has also played numerous games for the Melbourne Super Kings in Melbourne. He also played for
Chennai Superstars
Chennai Superstars was one of the nine teams played in the defunct Indian Cricket League (ICL) founded in 2007. The team is based in Chennai, coached by Michael Bevan and captained by Stuart Law, both reputed Australian cricketers.
The team ...
in the
Indian Cricket League
The Indian Cricket League (ICL) was a private cricket league funded by Zee Entertainment Enterprises that operated between 2007 and 2009 in India. Its two seasons included tournaments between four international teams (World XI, India, Pakistan ...
. He also coached at Barker College, a prestigious private school in Sydney's north. He also was assistant coach to
Deccan Chargers
The large Deccan Plateau in southern India is located between the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats, and is loosely defined as the peninsular region between these ranges that is south of the Narmada river. To the north, it is bounded by the ...
in the
IPL
The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...
before the team was removed from the competition.
In 2018, he was appointed as the tournament director of the
Lanka Premier League
The Lanka Premier League (abbreviated as LPL; , ) is a professional cricket league in Sri Lanka in Twenty20 format contested every year by teams representing Sri Lankan cities from 2020. The league was founded by Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) in 201 ...
by the
Sri Lanka Cricket
Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is the governing body for cricket in Sri Lanka. It was first registered with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Sports (Sri Lanka), Ministry of Sports as the Board of Cricket for Sri Lanka (BCCSL) on 30 June 1975 as a national spo ...
but the proposed 2018 edition of the LPL was cancelled due to the dissolution of the Sri Lanka Cricket Board. He also played for Sri Lanka Legends in
2020-21 Road Safety World Series
The hyphen-minus is the most commonly used type of hyphen, widely used in digital documents. It is the only character that looks like a minus sign or a dash in many character sets such as ASCII or on most keyboards, so it is also used as such. ...
which was captained by
Tillakaratne Dilshan
Tillakaratne Mudiyanselage Dilshan ( si, තිලකරත්න මුදියන්සේලාගේ ඩිල්ෂාන්; born 14 October 1976), commonly known as TM Dilshan () is a former Sri Lankan cricketer and former captain of th ...
and Sri Lanka Legends became runners up to India Legends in the final.
Current career
Arnold is now a popular
television commentator and also writes a weekly Q+A column on Island Cricket. Russel also keeps his fans entertained using his iPhone ap
'Ask Rusty'launched in 2012. It was launched in 2012 along with the T20 World Cup. The iPhone app allows Russel's fans to ask questions directly from Russel Arnold. In addition, it consists of feeds of Russel's match predictions where the user can actively participate in voting. He also wrote articles for
ESPNcricinfo
ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...
for brief stint. He also worked as a radio broadcaster for a short period of time.
On 1 December 2016, Arnold won the
Dialog
Dialog is an online information service owned by ProQuest, who acquired it from Thomson Reuters in mid-2008.
Dialog was one of the predecessors of the World Wide Web as a provider of information, though not in form. The earliest form of the Dial ...
Sri Lanka Cricket
Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is the governing body for cricket in Sri Lanka. It was first registered with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Sports (Sri Lanka), Ministry of Sports as the Board of Cricket for Sri Lanka (BCCSL) on 30 June 1975 as a national spo ...
awards for the International Commentator of the year 2015. He is currently regarded as just one of two Sri Lankan international cricket commentators alongside
Roshan Abeysinghe. He has worked as a commentator in international cricket matches involving Sri Lanka as well as worked as commentator in
Test Match Special
''Test Match Special'' (also known as ''TMS'') is a British sports radio programme, originally, as its name implies, dealing exclusively with Test cricket matches, but currently covering any professional cricket. It broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 LW ( ...
,
Indian Premier League
The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...
,
2020 Lanka Premier League
The 2020 Lanka Premier League also known as My11Circle LPL T20, for sponsorship reasons, was the inaugural edition of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) Twenty20 franchise cricket tournament in Sri Lanka. Five teams based on various Sri Lankan citi ...
. He has also engaged in giving commentary in Tamil during a pre match analysis prior to the start of a test match between India and Sri Lanka in 2017 and in the
2020 Indian Premier League
The 2020 Indian Premier League, also known as IPL 13 and branded as Dream11 Indian Premier League 2020, was the thirteenth season of the IPL, a professional Twenty20 cricket (T20) league established by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (B ...
for Star Sports Tamil.
Following the success of Russel's comic strip "Chilling with Russel" during the Road Safety World Series, he launched his YouTube Channel Talk show alongside friend and Manager Shyam Impett titled "Chilling With Russel" in July 2021.
In August 2021, he was appointed as the mentor of the Northern Rangers
PUBG Mobile
''PUBG Mobile'' (Chinese: 和平精英; pinyin: Hé Píng Jīng Yīng) is a free-to-play battle royale video game developed by LightSpeed & Quantum Studio, a division of Tencent Games. It is a mobile game adaptation of '' PUBG: Battlegrounds' ...
team for the Gamer.LK's Singer Esports Premier League.
Controversies
During the final of the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy which was held in Sri Lanka, Indian skipper
Sourav Ganguly
Sourav Chandidas Ganguly (; natively spelled as Gangopadhyay; born 8 July 1972), affectionately known as Dada (meaning ''"elder brother"'' in Bengali), is an Indian cricket administrator, commentator and former national cricket team captain w ...
became frustrated with Arnold who was seen stepping onto the main danger area of the pitch while batting and Ganguly gave him warning to avoid stepping into the danger area of the pitch.
He along with four Sri Lankan players were banned by Sri Lanka Cricket from taking part in domestic cricket competitions in Sri Lanka after taking part in the unofficial Indian Cricket League in 2007.
Russel was alleged that he retired from international cricket in order to play in the Indian Cricket League but he rubbished the claims. A year later in 2008, Sri Lanka Cricket lifted the ban imposed on all five players and they were allowed to return to Sri Lankan domestic cricket circuit.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arnold, Russel
Sri Lankan cricketers
1973 births
Living people
Sri Lanka Test cricketers
Sri Lanka One Day International cricketers
Cricketers at the 2003 Cricket World Cup
Cricketers at the 2007 Cricket World Cup
Sri Lankan Methodists
Sri Lanka Twenty20 International cricketers
Nondescripts Cricket Club cricketers
Cricketers at the 1998 Commonwealth Games
Sri Lankan Tamil sportspeople
Chennai Superstars cricketers
ICL World XI cricketers
Alumni of St. Peter's College, Colombo
Sri Lankan cricket commentators
Commonwealth Games competitors for Sri Lanka