Harshan Lamabadusuriya

Harshan Lamabadusuriya

Harshan Lamabadusuriya (stylised on his nameplate as Harshan L'Suriya) was the runner-up of Series 34 and a quarter-finalist in Championship of Champions IX. He was an A-level student at Steyning Grammar School from Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, but originally from Sri Lanka.

Lamabadusuriya made his debut in the first heat game of the series, comfortably beating Bob Edwards 55 – 44, and thus became the first new champion of the show following the Supreme Championship. Lamabadusuriya won another two games without facing a crucial conundrum before losing at the hands of Paul Wells.

Lamabadusuriya returned for the finals as number five seed. He beat Peter Sampson in the quarter-final with a score of 72 – the highest of the series – following a commanding performance, and missing out on a max game by just one point. He then pulled off a minor upset by beating number one seed James Martin 48 – 31 in the semi-final the very next day, with the outcome already decided before the conundrum. In the grand final against Huw Morgan, however, Lamabadusuriya suffered a dramatic loss of form, struggling for points in the early rounds, and was ultimately beaten 79 – 65 despite staging a minor comeback towards the end. Notably, Lamabadusuriya admitted at the presentation of the OED that it was Morgan narrowly beating him to the buzzer on the first conundrum that really did the damage, as this put Morgan 24 points ahead, by 47 – 23 at half time, effectively leaving Lamabadusuriya no way back – however, had Lamabadusuriya got to the buzzer first, the final result would in fact have eventually gone in his favour by 75 – 69.

Lamabadusuriya returned for Championship of Champions IX, beating Kate Surtees in the first round before losing to Pete Cashmore in the quarter-final.

Lamabadusuriya is also a Scrabble grandmaster and, in March 2017, he broke a short-standing ABSP record for the highest score in one move: 329 for the word KREUZERS, which was later broken by Piotr Andronowski's 347-pointer ADEQUACY in September 2017. Lamabadusuriya is the 2003 National Scrabble Champion and finished runner-up in the 2017 World Scrabble Championship, where he lost the final 3 – 0 to Australian David Eldar.

Lamabadusuriya returned to Countdown for a special episode against fellow Scrabble grandmaster Brett Smitheram which he won 101 – 87, but should have been 101 – 95 due to the wrongful disallowance of MUSTERER.

Preceded by Allan Saldanha

Series runner-up Series 34

Followed by Dag Griffiths

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
1908	30/12/1996	P	Bob Edwards	44 – 55	Harshan Lamabadusuriya	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Sheridan Morley	Rob Scriven	85
1909	31/12/1996	P	Sandra Verhiest	12 – 50	Harshan Lamabadusuriya	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Sheridan Morley	Rob Scriven	70
1910	01/01/1997	P	John Verhiest	40 – 66	Harshan Lamabadusuriya	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Sheridan Morley	Rob Scriven	72
1911	02/01/1997	P	Paul Wells	54 – 36	Harshan Lamabadusuriya	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Sheridan Morley	Rob Scriven	72
1969	25/03/1997	QF	Harshan Lamabadusuriya	72 – 30	Peter Sampson	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Richard Digance	Rob Scriven	73
1970	26/03/1997	SF	Harshan Lamabadusuriya	48 – 31	James Martin	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Richard Digance	Rob Scriven	71
1972	28/03/1997	GF	Harshan Lamabadusuriya	65 – 79	Huw Morgan	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Richard Digance	Rob Scriven	116
2164	30/12/1997	CP	Harshan Lamabadusuriya	44 – 34	Kate Surtees	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Denis Norden	Mark Nyman	72
2172	09/01/1998	CQF	Pete Cashmore	65 – 52	Harshan Lamabadusuriya	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Gloria Hunniford	Mark Nyman	85
S7	03/09/2003	S	Brett Smitheram	87 – 101	Harshan Lamabadusuriya	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman					Richard Stilgoe	Damian Eadie	119