Sri Lanka

The R. Premadasa Stadium, still known to older fans as Khettarama, in the Maligawatta suburb, holds 35,000 and remains the team's base — but Sri Lanka's cricket identity was built well before that, on school and club fields where Nondescripts and Colombo Cricket Club, along with sides from S. Thomas' College and Royal College, sent generation after generation into the national set-up.

The island played first-class cricket under the name Ceylon from the 1920s, joined the ICC as an Associate in 1965, and kept the Ceylon name in international cricket for nearly a decade after the country itself became Sri Lanka in 1972. Full Test status arrived on 21 July 1981, making Sri Lanka the eighth Test nation, and the first Test followed against England the next February.

Everything the team is now known for traces back to 25 March 1996, when Arjuna Ranatunga's side beat Australia in Lahore to win the Cricket World Cup, with Aravinda de Silva carrying the final. The 2014 World Twenty20 in Bangladesh added a second global title, won under Lasith Malinga, and a shared Champions Trophy with India in 2002 sits alongside two lost World Cup finals, in 2007 and 2011.