Mahela Jayawardene

Denagamage Proboth Mahela de Silva Jayawardene, known to us as Mahela Jayawardene was born on 27 May 1977. Currently the captain of the Sri Lankan cricket team, he is one of the top Sri Lankan batsmen with a Test average touching 50, and an ODI average in the 30s. The International Cricket Council named his as the best International captain of the year 2006. Known for excellent fielding skills in the inner ring brought forth by stats showing since the 1999 Cricket World Cup, he has under his belt fifth highest number of run-outs in ODI cricket of any fieldsman.

He first played cricket for Nalanda College where he was the runner-up best schoolboy during the cricketing season of 1994.

Making his Test debut in the record breaking Test in 1997 against India at R.P.S., Colombo, he put 66 runs on the board with Sanath Jayasuriya playing a man of the match performance scoring 340. Sri Lanka ended up scoring 952/6, the highest ever Test score. Jayawardene then developed a huge appetite for big scores, achieving the 167 against New Zealand and the knocking 242 against India.

Debuting his One Day Internationals against Zimbabwe at Premadasa in January 1998 Sri Lanka won the match with Jayawardhane striking the winning run. Jayawardene followed with a 74 against Zimbabwe in his second game taking only 11 matches before he landmarked his first century against England in the Carlton and United World Series game at Adelaide. Entering into a pressure situation a struggling Sri Lankan side at 134/4. He posted a ravaging 120 runs to winning the match.

Jayawardene captained recently the England tour in the absence of Marvan Atapattu. He led the Lankans to 1-1 draw in the Test series following an emphatic whitewash (5-0) in the ODI series.

The first Test of the 2006 Test series against South Africa, shall always remain a memorable one. Jayawardene shared a world record stand of 624 with Kumar Sangakkara. Smashing the previous third wicket stance for Sri Lanka, this partnership remains the highest for any wicket in first-class cricket history, for a first time a stance of 600 or more in a Test match innings was achieved. It also broke the previous record for the third wicket for all Test playing nations surpassing the 467 run partnership made by the New Zealand pair of Martin Crowe and Andrew Jones which came in 1991 against Sri Lanka. Jayawardene then became the first Sri-Lankan captain to score a Test triple-century, scoring an unforgettable 374 runs off 572 deliveries with smashing 43 fours and 1 six, the fourth highest score in history of Test match cricket. His score also was the highest ever by by a Sri Lankan in a Test match surpassing Sanath Jayasuriya’s knock of 340 in 1997 against India. That triple-hundred made him fourth in the world’s highest individual scores list, which is currently topped by Brian Lara (400*), trailed by Matthew Hayden (380), and Brian Lara again (375); making him the highest right-handed batsmen in the list. He is also the first batsman scoring 350 in a Test and not going on to break the world record.

Jayawardhane has won praise for his personal contribution to the HOPE cancer project. He aims at building a new 750-bed cancer unit at Maharagama, Sri Lanka’s only dedicated cancer hospital. He’s married to a Danish Sri Lankan, Christina Sirisena.