Separamadu Lasith Malinga (; born 28 August 1983), nicknamed "Slinga Malinga", is a Sri Lankan former cricketer who is widely regarded as one of the greatest limited overs bowlers of all time. Malinga captained the Sri Lankan 2014 T20 World Cup winning side and is the only bowler to take 4 wickets in 4 balls twice in international cricket. Malinga is a right-arm fast bowler that is commonly used as a specialist death bowler, and is well known for his distinctive round-arm action, sometimes referred to as a sling action, hence his aforementioned nickname. Malinga announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on 14 September 2021. Malinga's unorthodox action and dipping slower ball yorkers are credited with much of his success. He changed the dynamics and landscape of death bowling in limited overs cricket by bowling his toe crushing yorkers. He is best known for his ability to take consecutive wickets, with in-swinging yorkers: he is the only bowler in the world to have two World Cup hat-tricks, first bowler to take a double hatrick, the only bowler to have taken three hat-tricks in ODIs and only bowler to have two double hatricks. He is also the first bowler to take five hat-tricks across all formats of international cricket, and holds the record for most hat-tricks in international cricket. On 22 April 2011, he announced his retirement from Test cricket. He has been named as the official event ambassador for the World Twenty20 Championships by ICC. On 26 July 2019, he retired from One Day International cricket after the first ODI against Bangladesh. In September 2019, during the series against New Zealand, Malinga became the first bowler to take 100 wickets in Twenty20 International cricket. Malinga took a hat-trick to become the first bowler to claim two T20I hat-tricks, and four wickets in four balls, in the third over of his spell, while becoming the second bowler in the world to take four wickets in four consecutive balls in T20I history after Rashid Khan during the process. In January 2021, he retired from T20 franchise cricket. In September 2021, Malinga announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. Early years Malinga grew up in modest circumstances in Rathgama, a coastal village situated 12 km northwest of Galle. He often played cricket with friends on the sand banks and coconut groves by a river in his cricket-obsessed village. His father