Kemira top-order batter and off-spinner who played professional cricket in Sri Lanka for Air Force Sports Club. He has spent the last three seasons as the overseas professional at Chesterfield CC in the Derbyshire County Cricket League. During this time, he has produced 3,400 runs at an average of 43 and taken 123 wickets at 21. In his first season he helped win a league title and promotion, and then kept delivering when the standard went up. Clubs signing Kemira get a reliable run-scorer at the top of the order and a frontline spinner in a single overseas slot.
With the bat, Kemira is the kind of player a captain can trust. He has a composed, organised method, builds his innings patiently and bats deep into the overs, then has the shots to take a game away once he is set. With the ball he is a genuine weapon rather than a part-timer. His off-spin is built on accuracy: he bowls tight lines, ties up an end, and keeps taking wickets while he does it. Add athletic and a sharp fielder to the list too.
His English record tells a story of a player who arrived, adapted and dominated. Kemira joined Chesterfield in 2024, the club's first season of a push to get back to the top flight. He adjusted quickly, and it was a breakthrough campaign. He finished the season with 831 runs and 55 wickets, making him Chesterfield's leading run-scorer and leading wicket-taker as they won Division One and earned promotion to the Premier Division after a three-year absence.
Promotion did not slow him down. Across the next two seasons in the Derbyshire Premier League, he continued to score heavily and take wickets week after week. He has shown he can deliver on the big occasions too, with 68 not out and a wicket to win a National Club Championship tie against Bracebridge Heath, an unbeaten 102 as an opener to win a rain-shortened Premier Cup quarter-final at Sandiacre, and a superb 119 off 95 balls in the semi-final against Ockbrook & Borrowash.
That consistency is backed by a proper professional grounding in Sri Lanka. Kemira made his T20 debut for Bloomfield Cricket and Athletic Club in 2021 and has since established himself with Sri Lanka Air Force Sports Club, playing first-class, List A and T20 cricket in the country's top domestic competitions. Still only in his mid-twenties, he is ambitious, hungry to keep improving and has the long-term goal of continuing to play professional cricket in Sri Lanka.
What sets Kemira apart is what he gives a club off the field. Chesterfield chairman described him as the best overseas player the club has ever had, and was just as impressed by the time he gave to the juniors and to helping around the club as by his performances. He threw himself into Chesterfield's junior coaching, became a big part of club life and talks about the club as a family. He is the type of overseas player who leaves a club stronger than he found it.
Proven in English conditions, a match-winner with bat and ball, and a professional who invests in the people around him, Kemira is a signing that improves a club on the pitch, in the dressing room and in its junior section.
