Everyone has the same reaction whenever a team posts a monster total in ODIs. purists clutch their chests, "ODI is dying" posts come out and we all nod along. But look at what happened yesterday! Flattest pitch, best possible conditions for batting and getting to 400 in 50 overs is still hard. Teams have done it 35 times. In 2nd innings? only 4 times. And a successful chase of it? Yesterday was just the 3rd time in history. What gets me is who did it. No real contribution from Pathum Nissanka and Kusal Mendis, the two batters Sri Lanka lean on most. Be honest, none of this lineup would make your list of top 20 modern batters, maybe not even top 30. Yet they did what none of the big star names have managed for their own teams. the man who started it was Pavan Rathnayake. 24/2 after 4.2 overs against a target of 430, Kusal run out for a duck, Kamindu gone. Most 24 year olds would have taken a quiet look at scoreboard and prayed. He walked in at number 4 and added 166 with Avishka Fernando in 137 balls. His hundred came in 86 deliveries and he finished with 130 off 106. By the time he went, Shanaka and Liyanage had a chase that was alive and breathing. Look at where he comes from. Sprinter till age of 11, 100 metres, junior colours. Mahanama College captain in every age group, 14 school hundreds. At 17 he scored 164* from number 8, youngest Sri Lankan to a First Class century. In 2022, He set a national record for Sri Lankan domestic cricketers in 2km running fitness test, clocking a time of 6 minutes and 46 seconds. And once before an Under 19 match, his father passed away. He played anyway, with his father's body still at home. A boy who has done that does not panic at 24 for 2. Shanaka smashed 97 off 50 and Liyanage hit the winning six and rightly they got the cheers. But long before that, a former sprinter ran down a mountain.