Thilan Thusara Samaraweera (; born 22 September 1976) is a former Sri Lankan international cricketer. Samaraweera played international cricket for Sri Lanka. Known as Sri Lanka's crisis man and for his slow strike rate, He is also nicknamed “Bullet Samaraweera" following his wounding during the 2009 terror attack on his national team bus in Pakistan. He retired after over 80 matches with a batting average over 48 in Test cricket. Personal life Thilan Samaraweera born in Colombo and had his education at Ananda College, Colombo. He is married to Erandathie Samaraweera and has two daughters: Osuni and Sidhya. His brother, Dulip Samaraweera, also played Test cricket, appearing in seven Tests from 1993 to 1995. His brother-in-law Bathiya Perera has represented Sri Lanka A. Early career Thilan played school cricket for Ananda College and emerged as a prolific batsman in inter-school competitions. He initially was a frontline spinner at school level. He spearheaded the bowling attack of Ananda capturing 72 wickets in 1984 and 64 wickets in 1985 season. He amassed 1000 runs in 1994 and 1995 seasons. He won the Sri Lankan Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year in 1994 and 1995. Domestic career He was drafted to the Kandurata Warriors side ahead of the inaugural edition of the Sri Lanka Premier League in 2012. He signed with Worcestershire County Cricket Club for the 2013 County Championship. International career Samaraweera started his career as an off-spinner who could bat a bit and could not find a way into the side due to the emergence of Muttiah Muralitharan. He started his first-class career mainly as a frontline bowler and later improvised his batting in domestic circuit. He managed a handful of ODI games in 1998 but did not play Test cricket until August 2001. He made his ODI debut against India on 6 November 1998 but he was not given the opportunity to bat in the middle order on his ODI debut as he was listed as no 10 batsman. In his next 2 ODI appearances, he batted at no 8 and in his fourth ODI match he batted as a tailender at no 11 position. Having worked on his batting considerably with his shadow coach Chandika Hathurusingha he got due reward by scoring century on debut against a strong Indian side helping Sri Lanka to win the series 2–1. He continued to star with the bat by scoring another two centuries