Let us now feast our eyes on Aravinda de Silva
The pulls, the flicks, the pulls, the cuts, the... did we mention pulls?
If all you knew were averages, you might look at Aravinda de Silva's numbers - 42.97 in Tests and 34.90 in ODIs - and wonder what the fuss is about. So forget the averages. Watch this collection of de Silva's hooks and pulls instead. This is no textbook technique. The way he holds his bat, face open to the bowler, the backlift almost perpendicular to the body (like an over-large table-tennis racquet), it's almost as if he built his whole personality around playing the short ball - something he would have often had to do as a five-foot-two-inch batsman. There's a homespun imprecision to the set-up and foot movement. But then a genius and a swagger to the execution - that front leg swinging around like a gate caught in a gust. Like all great players of the hook and pull, he could just as easily thump you straight of midwicket as flick you fine of fine leg. All this without a grille on his helmet.
You knew these were coming, right? No appreciation of the man is complete without what is arguably the greatest performance in knockouts across all World Cups. In the semi-final against India in 1996, de Silva played the kind of innings only he could really even conceive, let alone execute. Coming in with the score 1 for 2 in the first over, both vaunted openers back in the dressing room and 100,000 India fans in full voice, de Silva unleashed a counterattack of rare venom and majesty. He had switched to a heavy bat midway through the tournament, and just watch the square drives and flicks off his pads here, and how the ball basically explodes off the bat. He made 66 off 47 balls, and set Sri Lanka on track to what proved a comfortably winning total.
Dilshan and Sanath Jayasuriya are Sri Lanka's patron saints of outrageous six-hitting, but de Silva wasn't far behind. Just check out these hits off Brett Lee at the 2003 World Cup - right at the end of de Silva's career. Or this advancing inside-out strike against Geoff Lawson.
Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo's Sri Lanka correspondent. @afidelf