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Recently, the veteran left-arm spinner Malinda Pushpakumara managed to etch his name into the annals of cricket history as he became the fourth Sri Lankan player to achieve the milestone of 1,000 first-class wickets. This extraordinary feat places him alongside the like of Muttiah Muralitharan, Rangana Herath, and Dinuka Hettiarachchi, the legendary bowlers.

Pushpakumara accomplished the milestone during the Sri Lanka Major League three-day tournament while representing Badureliya Sports Club against Moors Sports Club at the Colts Cricket Club. Beginning the match with 998 wickets, the spinner who is now 38 years old finished the day with an innings and a 46-run win over Badureliya with bowling figures of 7 for 137. His 1,000th wicket was that of the Moors batter Pasindu Sooriyabandara who was bowled cleanly on the last morning.

With this achievement, Pushpakumara got his name listed as the 218th cricketer worldwide to score 1,000 first-class wickets and the third active bowler alongside James Anderson and Simon Harmer, in the total number of wickets taken. The nearest active bowler in terms of 1,000 runs is Nathan Lyon who is still 140 runs away as he is at 860 wickets.

After making his first-class debut in November 2006, Pushpakumara has played in 173 games, scoring wickets at an average of 20.06 and a strike rate of 38.3. His remarkable record consists of 86 five-wicket hauls and 28 ten-wicket match performances, among others. Notably, his strike rate puts him in the company of great bowlers from the 19th and early 20th centuries like William Lillywhite, Alfred Mynn, and John Wisden.

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2019 was a year when one of the most remarkable occasions in Pushpakumara's career occurred, and he recorded incredible bowling figures of 10 for 37 for Colombo Cricket Club, which is the best first-class bowling performance ever noted in Sri Lanka. Moreover, he was the second Sri Lankan in history, after Pramodya Wickramasinghe, to take all ten wickets in a first-class innings at home.

The international career of Pushpakumara was not long as he was still very popular in his country due to his great performance. Between 2017 and 2018 he was a part of four Test matches for Sri Lanka during which he took 14 wickets at a 37.14 average. His international limitations were mainly due to the fact that he played alongside the great Muralidaran and Herath during Sri Lanka’s golden spin period. Pushpakumara has also never appeared in the English county circuit which puts him in the same group with Hettiarachchi as the only one who has taken 1,000 first-class wickets without playing county cricket in England.