Test cricket will bid farewell to one of its most elegant strokemakers when Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene quits the longer format after the second Test against Pakistan, starting in Colombo tomorrow.
Few cricketers have exemplified the spirit of the game better than the gentlemanly 37-year-old, even though his pleasant demeanor hides nerves of steel, a calculating street-smart mind and an obsessive drive for perfection.
The elegant right-hander retired from Twenty20 internationals after Sri Lanka’s titlewinning campaign in the Twenty20 World Cup in April, but still hopes to compete in next year’s one-day World Cup Down Under.
Jayawardene is one of only five batsmen to score more than 11,000 runs in both Test and one-day cricket — the others being Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis and teammate Kumar Sangakkara.
An average of 50.02 over 148 Tests with 34 centuries illustrates his hunger for runs through a 17-year-career. Although his form outside Asia has been inconsistent, he has set a deluge of records at home.
He scored a monumental 374 during a world-record partnership of 624 with Sangakkara (287) against a South Africa attack that included Dale Steyn and Makhya Ntini on his home ground at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) in Colombo in 2006.
Jayawardene looked set to surpass Brian Lara’s record of 400 when he was bowled against the run of play. Ever the teammate, he preferred to rejoice in his team’s huge win by an innings and 153 runs.
He got a taste of big scores on his Test debut itself as a 20-year-old in 1997, when Sri Lanka piled up a world-record total of 952-6 declared against India at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.
Slated to bat at No. 6, the young Jayawardene saw Sanath Jayasuriya make 340, supported by Roshan Mahanama (225), before himself scoring 66.
Jayawardene’s farewell Test was originally scheduled to be played at the P. Sara Oval in Colombo before thoughtful officials accepted a request to move it to the SSC.
His 2,863 runs in 26 Tests at the SSC are the most by any batsman at a single ground, marked by an average of 77.37, with 11 centuries and eight fifties.
Last month, against Hashim Amla’s South Africa team, Jayawardene showed that his skills had not diminished as he once again reveled in the serene surroundings of the SSC to make a fluent 165.
He bid farewell to another happy hunting ground in Galle on Sunday by making 59 in the first innings, and 26 in the unfamiliar role of an opener in the second as Sri Lanka beat fading light and approaching rain to chase down a target of 99 with 4.2 overs to spare against Pakistan.
Jayawardene admitted it was not an easy decision to retire.
“It has been a great privilege and honor representing my country during the past 17 years, but I believe this is the right time. The younger players in the side are doing well and Angelo [Mathews] has settled in as captain. My job is done,” he said.
A prolific slip-catcher, Jayawardene’s 202 catches are second only to India’s Rahul Dravid and his record tally of 210 by a fielder other than a wicketkeeper.
Jayawardene was also an astute captain who took Sri Lanka to the World Cup final in 2007. He quit the post in 2009, but continued to play under Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan before he took on the job again in 2012 for a year as Mathews was groomed.
Off the field, Jayawardene is the co-owner with Sangakkara of an upmarket fish restaurant in Colombo.
Sangakkara said his good friend will be hard to replace.
“Not just me, but the cricket world, Sri Lankan fans and our whole team will feel the loss of a great player like Mahela,” Sangakkara said. “It will take a long time to fill that void.”
“He’s always been the ultimate team man. Everyone in the dressing room respects and admires his honesty, integrity, commitment, inner strength and great strategic vision,” Sangakkara added.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier