By M.L. Fernando
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It is sad to hear that Angelo Mathews had decided to take a break from national duties. Should the long-serving Sri Lanka batting all-rounder retire from Tests in his present age of 34?[/caption]
SRI LANKA RETIRING AGE
A full list of all Sri Lankan cricketers who had scored more than 5,000 runs in Tests is given below.
Key: Name / No. of Tests / Age when he played his last Test / Fifties / Centuries / Runs / Average
Kumar Sangakkara 134 / 36 / 52 / 38 / 12,400 / 57.40
Mahela Jayawardene 149 / 37 / 50 / 34 / 11,817 / 49.86
Sanath Jayasuriya 110 / 38 / 31 / 14 / 6,973 / 40.07
Aravinda de Silva 93 / 37 / 22 / 20 / 6,363 / 42.99
Angelo Mathews 90 / 34 / 36 / 11 / 6,236 / 44.86*
Marvan Atapattu 90 / 37 / 17 / 16 / 5,502 / 39.02
Tillakaratne Dilshan 87 / 37 / 23 / 16 / 5,495 / 41.00
Thilan Samaraweera 81 / 36 / 30 / 14 / 5,462 / 48.76
Dimuth Karunaratne 72 / 33 / 26 / 12 / 5,176 / 38.62*
Arjuna Ranatunga 93 / 37 / 38 / 4 / 5,106 / 35.70
* Current player
WISDEN CRICKETER OF THE YEAR
Every year, the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack selects five (5) cricketers from Test-playing countries as “Cricketers of the Year”. In 2015, they selected A.D. Mathews as one of the five cricketers for that year. He was the eighth Sri Lankan cricketer to be selected for the award.
The other elite Sri Lankan Test cricketers who were selected for this award before 2015 are listed below:
Key: Name / Year “the Cricketers of the Year” award was won
Sidath Wettimuny - 1985
Aravinda de Silva - 1996
Sanath Jayasuriya - 1997
Arjuna Ranatunga - 1999
Muttiah Muralitharan - 1999
Mahela Jayawardene - 2007
Kumar Sangakkara - 2012
Angelo Mathews - 2015
LONGEST RUN WITHOUT ‘A DUCK’ (0)
In 2017, Angelo Mathews became the 14th Test cricketer in the world to bat for more than 70 consecutive Test innings, at any part of his career, without getting out for ‘a duck’.
A full list of these well-known cricketers is given below:
Key: No. / Name / Country / No. of consecutive innings without ‘a duck’ / Period
1. Herbie Taylor / SA / 72 / 1912 to 1931-32
2. Ken Barrington / Eng. / 78 / 1962 to 1967-68
3. Glenn Turner / NZ / 72 / 1968-69 to 1982-83
4. Clive Lloyd / WI / 74 / 1976 to 1984
5. Allan Border / WI / 89 / 1982-83 to 1988-89
6. David Gower / Eng. / 119 / 1982 to 1990-91
7. Richie Richardson / WI / 96 / 1984-85 to 1991
8. Alec Stewart / Eng. / 86 / 1993-94 to 1998-99
9. Aravinda de Silva / SL / 75 / 1984 to 1994-95
10. Rahul Dravid / Ind. / 72 / 1999 to 2003-04
11. A.B. de Villiers / SA / 78 / 2004-05 to 2008-09
12. Kumar Sangakkara / SL / 85 / 2005-06 to 2011-12
13. Sachin Tendulkar / Ind. / 91 / 2007-08 to 2013-14
14. Angelo Mathews / SL / 83 / 2012 to 2017
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Mathews celebrates dismissing Pakistan’s Misbah-ul-Haq during a Test match at SSC on 22 July 2009, in Mathews’ debut Test series for Sri Lanka. He was 22 years of age then[/caption]
It was sad to hear that Angelo Mathews had decided to take a break from national duties. But he is only 34 years old. Due to the fact that Sri Lanka have been ranked No. 8 in the world at the moment, Mathews should come back and the newcomers can learn a lot from him.
Mathews has represented Sri Lanka in 90 Tests, 218 One Day Internationals (ODIs) and 78 Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is). He had scored 6,236 runs in Tests with an average of 44.86.
M.L. Fernando is contactable on e-mail address larlasri@gmail.com