Sanath Jayasuriya
Sanath Teran Jayasuriya (born 30 June 1969) is a former Sri Lankan cricketer and a former captain of the Sri Lankan national cricket team. He is well known for his powerful striking and match winning all-round performances in One Day International cricket. Jayasuriya is credited for having revolutionized One Day International cricket with his explosive batting with Romesh Kaluwitharana in 1996, which initiated the hard-hitting modern day batting strategy of all nations.
Jayasuriya was an all-rounder, who had an international cricket career that spread over two decades, Jayasuriya is the only player to score over 12,000 runs and capture more than 300 wickets in One Day International cricket, and hence regarded as one of the best all rounders in the history of limited-overs cricket. He was named the Most Valuable Player of 1996 Cricket World Cup and Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack broke an age old tradition by naming him one of Five Cricketers of the Year 1997 despite not playing the previous season in England. Jayasuriya was also the captain of the Sri Lankan cricket team from 1999 to 2003.
He retired from Test cricket in December 2007 and from limited overs cricket in June 2011. On 28 January 2013, Sri Lanka Cricket appointed him as the chairman of cricket selection committee. Sri Lanka won the ICC World Twenty20 for the first time in 2014, during his tenure as the chief selector.
Jayasuriya ran for public office at the 2010 Sri Lankan general elections and was elected to the parliament from his native Matara District. He topped the UPFA parliamentary election list for Matara district by obtaining 74,352 preferential votes.He served as the deputy minister of Postal services in the former UPFA government led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, and later as the Deputy Minister of Local Government & Rural Development under president Maithripala Sirisena. Jayasuriya did not contest for the 2015 Sri Lankan general election, though he won most votes from Matara district under UPFA in the 2010 Sri Lankan general election.
Early life and career:
Sanath Jayasuriya was born in the Southern Sri Lankan city of Matara, to the family of Dunstan and Breeda Jayasuriya. He has an elder brother, Chandana Jayasuriya. He was educated at St. Servatius’ College, Matara, where his cricketing talents were nourished by his school principal, G.L. Galappathy, and cricket coach, Lionel Wagasinghe. He excelled in cricket while at St. Servatius College, Matara and captained the college cricket team at the annual St. Thomas’St. Servatius Cricket Encounter in 1988. Jayasuriya was picked as the ‘Observer Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year’ in the Outstation Segment in 1988. He also received the awards for the ‘Best Batsman’ and ‘Best All-rounder’ in the Outstation Segment at the Observer School Cricket Awards ceremony in the same year.Jayasuriya represented Sri Lanka in the inaugural ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup which was held in Australia in 1988 and was subsequently selected for a tour in Pakistan a few months later with the Sri Lanka ‘B’ team, where he made two unbeaten double centuries. Shortly afterwards he was drafted into the national side for the tour to Australia in 198990. He made his One Day International debut against Australia at Melbourne on Boxing Day of 1989 and his Test debut against New Zealand at Hamilton in February 1991.
International records:
He holds the highestNote 2 ODI innings by a Sri Lankan, scored 189 runs in 2000. It is the 11th highest of all time.
He holds the record for the second fastest fifty in ODIs, scored off just 17 balls. AB de Villiers holds the record for the fastest fifty by just 16 balls. Jayasuriya’s record stayed about 19 years without breaking it until De Villiers surpassed it on 18 January 2015.
Jayasuriya holds the record for fourth highest fours in an ODI innings, 24 fours.Record for highest no. of fours in an inning is for Rohit Sharma(India) 33 fours vs Sri-Lanka in 2014.
He is currently the fourth highest run scorer in ODIs with 13,430 runs. (Sachin Tendulkar is first with 18,426).
He is the only batsman in history to have two consecutive ODI scores above 150.
Jayasuriya holds the fourth fastest 150 in an ODI innings, off 95 balls against England in 2006. Fastest 150 was scored by AB de Villiers in 2015 against West Indies, scored 150 by 63 balls.
He is the only ODI cricketer with more than 12,000 runs and 300 wickets.
He is second only to Shahid Afridi, with most number of ODI sixes in career. Sanath hit 270 sixes and Afridi hit 334 sixes up to date.
He is currently the third highest centurion in ODIs with 28 under his belt (only Ponting (30) and Tendulkar (49) have more).
Jayasuriya has second most Man of the Match awards (48) in ODI cricket after Sachin Tendulkar (62).
He was also the first player to play in 400 ODIs matches.
He is the only Sri Lankan and third out of four overall to score an ODI century in a birthday, he scored 130 against Bangladesh on 30 June 2008, in his 39th birthday.The other three cricketers that have scored centuries in their birthdays are Vinod Kambli, Sachin Tendulkar, and Ross Taylor.
He is the third batsman in Test cricket to hit 6 fours in one over. He did this against England in his last Test innings.
He is the second oldest player to have scored an ODI century, performing when he was 39 years 212 days. The oldest player to score ODI century is Khurram Khan of UAE when he was 43 years of age.
Jayasuriya has been part of second most wins by a Sri Lankan in ODIs with 233 wins and is fourth in the world after Ricky Ponting(262 wins), Mahela Jayawardene(241 wins) and Sachin Tendulkar(234 wins)
Probably the most remarkable of all of his records stretches across all three recognized forms of international cricket. Until 2016, The Sri Lankan cricket team held the record for the Highest Innings Totals in Tests, One Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals at one time. In each of these Highest Innings Totals, Sanath Jayasuriya was the leading scorer for Sri Lanka.
Awards:
Jayasuriya has influenced for many international awards in his 20 years of cricketing career. He is second only to Sachin Tendulkar by the number of Man of the match awards for ODIs, where Tendulkar has 62 Man of the Match awards, and Jayasuriya has 47 of them. He also has 11 ODI Man of the Series awards. Besides ODI awards, he has 4 Test Man of the Match awards and single Test Man of the Series awards. He has 5 T20I Man of the Match awards as well.
Career statistics:
Test
Matches: 110
Runs scored: 6973
100s/50s: 14/31
Top score: 340
Wickets: 98
Best bowling: 5/34
ODI
Matches: 445
Runs scored: 13430
100s/50s: 28/68
Top score: 189
Wickets: 323
Best bowling: 6/29
