Marvan Atapattu overcame a torturous start to his international career (which included five ducks in his first six Test innings and six single-digit scores in his first seven ODIs) to become one of Sri Lanka's top batters, making over 14,000 runs in internationals for them over 16 years and scoring six Test double-hundreds.

An elegant, technically correct player, Atapattu was a fine exponent of the high-elbow cover-drive. On a lifeless pitch, he was a master of the percentage game, his caution a useful counterpoint to the risks taken by Sanath Jayasuriya, his opening partner almost throughout his Test career. For three years Atapattu was Jayasuriya's understudy before being appointed to lead the one-day side in April 2003; he took over the Test role the following year.

On the surface a quiet and reserved character, his captaincy skills were not entirely obvious to the outsider, but in the dressing room he was a straight-talking, positive captain, firm and fair in his dealings with the players and aggressive in his approach to the game. Under him Sri Lanka won the Asia Cup and ODI and Test series against South Africa at home in 2004, and meted out whitewashes in home Test series against West Indies and Bangladesh the following year. The high point of his tenure was 13 wins in 14 ODIs in 2004. That year, Atapattu made what would be the last of his 11 ODI hundreds, of which nine came away from home.

Atapattu's career was marked by various run-ins with the selectors - most notoriously when he called them "a set of muppets headed by a joker" while on the 2007-08 tour of Australia, for which he was a late inclusion following government intervention to bring him into the squad. He scored two half-centuries in that series, including 80 in the second innings in Hobart, but Sri Lanka lost 2-0 and Atapattu announced his retirement from international cricket on the last day of that Hobart match.

After retiring, he worked in various coaching roles with Sri Lanka in the 2010s, and also coached Canada and Singapore.