Mahela Jayawardene is one of the greatest and one of the most respected Sri Lankan cricketers to ever play for the nation of Sri Lanka and his stats and records are a proof of it which we will talk about a little bit later. He and Kumar Sangakkara were the two pillars of Sri Lanka batting for over a decade and they got mountains of runs in both the test and ODI formats of the game. His legacy is unparalleled and after his retirement he has maintained the highest level of professionalism and all of the cricketing world respects him a lot more now.
In this article we will talk about the profile and the stats and records of this great Sri Lankan batter and the contributions he has made to not just Sri Lankan cricket but global cricket as a whole. So, let’s look at his profile stats and records.
Profile :
Personal Information
The full name of Mahela Jayawardene is Denagamage Praboth Mahela de Silva Jayawardene and he was born on 27th May 1977 at Colombo in Sri Lanka. He since his early years was into cricket and he wanted to become a cricketer and represent Sri Lanka for a long time to come. He also had a nickname which was Malaya and he was fondly called by this name by his teammates when he was playing cricket. His height is 5ft 8 inches which is a decent height for a batter and this also helps him in getting in front of the ball and playing more strokes than people shorter height than him can play. He was a right handed batter and not only that he was also an useful right arm medium bowler for Sri Lanka and after retiring he has become the head coach of the Mumbai Indians franchise in the IPL and has been very successful with them for a long period of time.
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International Information
He first debuted for Sri Lanka in the year 1997 and he played at the top of his game till the year 2015 when he retired from the game. His debut test match for Sri Lanka was on 2nd August, 1997 against India and his last test match was on 14yh August 2014 against Pakistan. Similarly the first ODI match that he played was on 24th January 1998 and it was against Zimbabwe and his last ODI match was on 18th March 2015 against South Africa at the 2015 World Cup. He also represented Sri Lanka in T20IS and his first 20 overs match was on 15th June 2006 against England and his last T20I match was on 6th April vs India.
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Career Stats -
Competition | Test | ODIs |
Matches | 149 | 448 |
Runs scored | 11,814 | 12,650 |
Batting average | 49.84 | 33.37 |
100s/50s | 34/50 | 19/77 |
Top Score | 374 | 144 |
Balls bowled | 589 | 593 |
Wickets | 6 | 8 |
Bowling average | 51.66 | 70.37 |
5 Wickets in innings | 0 | 0 |
10 wickets in match | 0 | 0 |
Best bowling | 2/32 | 2/56 |
Catches | 205 | 218 |
Records -
Tests
Highest partnership for any wicket – 624 for the third wicket with Kumar Sangakkara against South Africa in 2006.
Highest partnership for the fourth wicket – 437 with Thilan Samaraweera against Pakistan in 2009 Second highest for the fourth wicket of all time.
Highest partnership for the sixth wicket – 351 Prasanna Jayawardene.
Highest partnership for the eighth wicket – 170 with Chaminda Vaas against South Africa in 2004.
Highest individual score in Tests by a Sri Lankan – 374 runs against South Africa in 2006.
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ODIs
Most number of ODI matches for Sri Lanka – 448 matches.
Most number of catches – 218 catches in 448 matches. The only fielder in ODI history to take 200 ODI catches.
Highest partnership for third wicket – 226 with Marvan Atapattu vs India in 2000.
Only batter to score a hundred in a World Cup semi final and final.
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