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Birthday Blast: Cricketing legend Sanath Jayasuriya turns 49
By Sandy - Jun 30, 2018 3:35 pm
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Today legendary Sri Lankan cricketer Sanath Jayasuriya becomes 49 years old. He was a great all-rounder in international cricket who was a left-handed batsman and slow left-arm orthodox bowler.

Sanath Jayasuriya

Jayasuriya was an important member of Sri Lanka’s 1996 World Cup victory as he was the Player of the Tournament after scoring 221 runs and taking 7 wickets in that tournament.

Making an international cricket debut in 1989 at the age of just 20 years, Jayasuriya played 110 Tests, 445 ODIs and 31 T20Is where he scored a total of 21,032 runs and also bagged a total of 440 wickets. As scoring 13,430 runs in ODI career, Jayasuriya is the fourth most runs scorer in ODI cricket.

Apart from those, Jayasuriya was also an outstanding fielder who grabbed a total of 205 catches in his international career.

During his international career, Jayasuriya also led his national side in 156 matches (38 Tests and 118 ODIs). Under his captaincy, Sri Lanka’s most memorable performance was in 2002 ICC Champions Trophy where the host Sri Lanka was the joint champion with India.

Here are some important international cricket records of Jayasuriya which are still on top:

  • Sanath Jayasuriya is the record holder of the highest Test partnership for the second wicket along with Roshan Mahanama. The duo put 576-run partnership for that wicket against India at Colombo (RPS) in August 1997.
  • Highest individual ODI knock by a Sri Lankan batsman. Jayasuriya scored 189 against India at Sharjah on October 29, 2000.
  • Jayasuriya holds the highest opening partnership record in ODI cricket with Upul Tharanga. They put 286-run partnership for the opening wicket against England at Leeds on July 1, 2006.
  • The only batsman to play two consecutive 150+ ODI knocks. In July 2006, Jayasuriya scored back-to-back 152 and 157 runs against England (at Leeds) and Netherlands (at Amstelveen) respectively.
  • Jayasuriya was the third batsman to hit 6 fours in an over. It was his last Test innings when he hit 6 fours in a James Anderson’s (England) over at Kandy in December 2007.