Mahela Jayawardene

Premadasa, 1997

Mahela Jayawardene made his Test debut for Sri Lanka against India at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo in 1997, walking in at number seven as an eighteen-year-old with a wristy, elegant technique that would become one of the most recognisable batting styles of his era. He was still a teenager when he first played for his country, and by the time he retired seventeen years later he had become Sri Lanka's most capped Test cricketer and the man who, alongside Kumar Sangakkara, carried the batting through the country's most successful period.

Across 149 Tests he scored 11,814 runs at 49.85, moved up the order from his debut position to settle at number four, where the great majority of his innings were played, and produced, along the way, one of the largest individual scores in the history of the format. His final Test came seventeen years after that debut, against Pakistan at the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground in Colombo, the same ground where he had made his 374, a span across which Sri Lanka went from a side finding its feet in the Test arena to one that reached a World Cup final and a World Twenty20 title during his years in the side.

A batter built for number four

Jayawardene played 195 of his 252 Test innings at number four, and the position suited a batter whose game combined wristy strokeplay through the leg side with a calm, unhurried tempo against both pace and spin. His record shows real consistency rather than one big score carrying an otherwise ordinary career: 34 centuries and 50 fifties, and five separate innings above 230, a spread that few batters in history have matched. His away average, 41.51, sat comfortably below his home figure of 59.73, a gap that reflects both the friendly conditions of Sri Lankan pitches and how thoroughly he learned to use them.

The 624

The defining innings of Jayawardene's career came against South Africa at the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground in Colombo in 2006, in a Test South Africa had reduced to 169 all out in their first innings. Jayawardene made 374, the highest score by a Sri Lankan batter and one of the largest individual innings in Test history, batting with Kumar Sangakkara in a third-wicket stand of exactly 624, the largest partnership for any wicket that Test cricket has recorded. Sangakkara added 285 of those runs on his way to 287. Sri Lanka's innings closed at 756 for 5, and South Africa, following on, were bowled out again for 434 as Sri Lanka won by an innings and 153 runs.

The scale of the stand, 950 balls faced between the two of them without either being separated, remains one of the most extreme passages of batting dominance the format has produced. It was played at the SSC, the ground that would go on to be the most productive of his career, 27 Tests for 2,921 runs at an average close to 75, well clear of any other venue in his record, with Galle not far behind at 70.06 from 23 Tests.

Beyond that one innings

The 374 was the largest of his scores, but not an isolated peak. He made 275 against India at what is now the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad in 2009, 242 against India at the SSC in 1999, 240 against Pakistan at Karachi in 2009, and 237 against South Africa at Galle in 2004, all within his five best innings. His largest career tally against any one opponent was 2,212 runs from 23 Tests against England, at an average of 58.21, ahead of 1,822 against India and 1,687 against Pakistan, and his best average against any regular opponent, 76.40, came against Bangladesh, though from a smaller sample of matches.

By decade the arc of his career shows a batter reaching his peak in the middle years: 55.32 in the 2000s from 95 Tests, the bulk of his career, easing to 39.62 in his final decade as the physical demands of a long international career began to tell, still a solid return by any ordinary standard.

Captaincy through a difficult decade

Jayawardene captained Sri Lanka in 38 Tests, winning 18 and losing 12, leading the side through a period that included the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and years in which Sri Lankan cricket had to rebuild both its playing group and, at times, its facilities. He was also a part-time bowler across his career, taking six wickets at an expensive average, a detail that rarely mattered given how rarely his side needed to turn to him with the ball; it was always as a batter, first in the middle order and later also as captain, that he made his name for Sri Lanka.

As a captain his sides also had to contend with home conditions that changed less than his opponents could adapt to: his own home average of 59.73 from 81 Tests dwarfed his away figure of 41.51 from 61, a gap common to Sri Lankan batters of his generation but especially pronounced in his own record, and one that shows up again in a neutral-venue average of only 25.38 from seven Tests played away from the subcontinent's usual hosts.

The numbers

The full career: 149 Tests, 252 innings, 11,814 runs at 49.85, 34 centuries, 50 fifties, and a highest score of 374. He was named player of the match 13 times, and Sri Lanka won 58 of the Tests he played and lost 46, a broadly even record shaped by the strength of the sides Sri Lanka faced through those years rather than by any shortcoming in his own batting, which stayed productive from his first full decade in the side to his last. By decade he averaged 44.43 in a short introduction through the late 1990s, peaked at 55.32 across 95 Tests in the 2000s, the decade that contained the 374 and the bulk of his career total, and settled at a still-substantial 39.62 across his final 39 Tests in the 2010s.

A long career closed at home

Jayawardene played his last Test against Pakistan at the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground in Colombo in 2014, the same ground where he had made his 374 eight years earlier, closing a career spent almost entirely in the company of Kumar Sangakkara in the Sri Lankan middle order. Between them the two batters anchored Sri Lanka's innings for the better part of two decades, and the 624 at the SSC stands as the most visible single expression of a partnership built over many hundreds of Test overs.

The full scorecards behind every figure above, including the 624-run partnership, are on his CricArcade player page, and the Sri Lanka team archive carries the sides he played in and captained. In The Follow-On you can put him at four and try to build a partnership anywhere near 624.

Sources

• CricArcade player page: full career record, best innings and scorecard links
• ESPNcricinfo: Mahela Jayawardene player profile and Test career statistics
• Wikipedia: Mahela Jayawardene