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 centuries in Test cricket for Sri Lanka, irrespective of five ducks in his first six innings. He has previously coached the Canada and Singapore national cricket teams. From April 2014 to September 2015, he was the head coach of Sri Lankan Cricket Team. School days Marvan Atapattu started his cricket career as a teenager at Mahinda College, Galle, where Major G. W. S. de Silva was his first cricket coach. Then he moved to Ananda College, Colombo, where he was subsequently coached by P. W. Perera. International career Making his Test debut in November 1990 just after his 20th birthday, Atapattu's first six innings yielded five ducks and a 1, and he was the first Sri Lankan batsman to be dismissed for a pair on debut. After this difficult start in his first three matches, he did not score above 29 in his next 11 innings, before hitting his first Test century in his 10th match, against India, seven years after his debut. He has 22 Test-match career ducks and four pairs (two ducks in a single Test), both records for a top-order batsman. He made his One-Day International debut against India at Nagpur. He was appointed as captain of the one-day team in April 2003. He registered his highest Test score of 249 against Zimbabwe in 2004, sharing a 438-run partnership with Kumar Sangakkara for the second wicket. Atapattu scored a century in the first innings of the Second Test during his team's tour of Australia in 2004 in Cairns, Queensland. His third century in five innings, he made 133. A "determin[ed]" Atapattu, ESPNcricinfo wrote, "pull[ed] authoritatively ... tuck[ed] in neatly behind the ball." He finished the two-match series scoring 156 runs at an average of 39.00 and was the top-scorer for his side. Atapattu was a skilful fielder with an accurate throw. A report prepared by ESPNcricinfo in late 2005 showed that since the 1999 Cricket World Cup, he had effected the second highest number of run-outs in ODI cricket of any fieldsman, with the seventh-highest success rate. He was controversially left out of the squad for the 2007 Cricket World Cup, and as a result, asked