Picked right out of school cricket, without a single First Class or List A game under his belt, to represent Sri Lanka in 2016, Avishka Fernando, barely 18 years of age had a rude welcome to the realities of international cricket. All he faced was two lightening deliveries from Mitchell Starc before having to walk back.

Hailed as a child prodigy with the bat, he was marked out for bigger things right from the start. He broke all records in the youth cricketing circuit with 1379 runs and four centuries, both records in the youth ODIs for Sri Lanka. He continued his march upwards with equally valuable contributions for Sri Lanka under-19s in the World Cup as well in the fifty-over contests that followed.