De Silva made his Test debut at Lord’s in 1984, and scored 75 as Sri Lanka recorded the first Test win in their history a year later, defeating India at Colombo. A first Test century followed against a Pakistan attack of Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Abdul Qadir at Faisalabad the following month, and in 1991 he struck a then-national record individual score of 267 against New Zealand at Wellington. 

The all-rounder was instrumental in Sri Lanka’s World Cup winning campaign in 1996, and his contributions during a memorable Final against Australia in Lahore are written in cricket folklore. De Silva took three key wickets with his off-spin to restrict Australia’s score, before scoring an unbeaten 107 to navigate his side out of trouble to win their maiden global crown. He was the first to score a century and take three wickets in the same World Cup match – and is still the only one to do so in a Final.

He signed off from Test cricket in 2002 with a double-century in his final innings and retired from all international cricket after the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in 2003.