Mahela Jayawardena – Test Career in Numbers

Mahela Jayawardena’s glorious Test career ended with a victory in the second Test between Sri Lanka and Pakistan at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo. While numbers don’t always reveal the complete story, they often help in measuring the contributions of a player. A look at some of the important numbers that have defined Jayawardena’s career:

7 – Jayawardena has scored 7 double centuries in Tests. Only Don Bradman, Kumar Sangakkara and Brian Lara have scored more double tons.

34 – His 34 Test centuries rank him joint-sixth in the list of most number of Test centuries, along with Sunil Gavaskar and Brian Lara. He is second in the list of most centuries by a Sri Lankan, behind Kumar Sangakkara.

38 – He captained Sri Lanka in 38 Tests, winning 18, losing 12 and drawing eight. His victory percentage as captain was 47.36, the same as Sanath Jayasuriya’s. He and Jayasuriya won the most matches as captain of Sri Lanka with 18 each. He scored 3665 runs as captain, and his average of 59.11 as captain is the highest for any batsman who has led in more than 30 Tests.

51 – In all international cricket he is one of only six players currently to have scored at least fifty centuries. He has scored 51 hundreds, including a T20I century.

66 – On his Test debut against India at the Premadasa Stadium in 1997 he scored 66 out of the world record total of 952-6 declared. He is also the first Sri Lankan batsman to score 50+ in both debut innings and final innings in Tests.

77 – He took 77 catches from the bowling of Muttiah Muralitharan, the most prolific fielder-bowler combination in the history of Test Cricket.

205 – He has taken 205 catches in Tests, only five behind Rahul Dravid in the list of most catches in Test cricket.

374 – His innings of 374 against South Africa at Colombo in 2006 is the fourth-highest Test score and the highest by a right-hander. It is also the highest score by a Sri Lankan batsman. He was involved in a world record partnership of 624 with Kumar Sangakkara for the third wicket during the innings.

624: In total he has played 624 international matches, surpassed only by Sachin Tendulkar’s 664 matches. He has played 149 Tests, the most by a Sri Lankan.

2921: He scored 2921 Test runs at the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, the most by any player on any ground. With 2382 runs at Galle, he also takes the second place in the list of most runs scored at a single venue. He is also the only player to score more than 2000 Test runs on two different grounds.

6554: Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara added a total of 6554 runs together as a partnership, the second in the list of most successful pairs, after India’s Rahul Dravid-Sachin Tendulkar combination. The Jayawardene-Sangakkara pair has the highest average for any pair that has more than 100 innings together.

11,814: He ends his career with 11,814 Test runs, seventh-most in the list of all-time run scorers in Tests. He is also the second highest run scorer in Tests for Sri Lanka, behind Kumar Sangakkara who currently sits in fifth place.