Mahela Jayawardene

Mahela Jayawardene is a right handed batsman and a right arm medium bowler with the Sri Lankan cricket team. He has also played cricket for the Asia XI, Wayamba, Sinhalese Sports Club and the Kings XI Punjab cricket teams. Presently, he is with the Delhi Daredevils team to play at the IPL 5 season 2012.

Jayawardene started playing first class cricket in 1995. He made his debut in International cricket in a test match against India at his hometown Colombo in 1997. He took 2 catches and bowled 2 overs giving away 6 runs. He scored 66 runs in 105 balls which included 10 boundaries before getting caught by Kulkarni off a ball by Saurav Ganguly in the first innings. The match was however drawn. The following year he played his first One day International match against Zimbabwe once again at his hometown. With right to batting, Jayawardene was at the 7th position and scored a run to help Sri Lanka win the match by 5 wickets.

In 2006, Jayawardene was captain of the Sri Lankan team and set a record 3rd wicket partnership of 624 runs with Kumar Sangakkara. His individual score of 374 runs off 572 balls was the 4th highest individual test score. For the 2007 Cricket World Cup, Jayawardene was the second most runs scorer for the tournament after Matthew Hayden of Australia. He made a century in the semi finals against New Zealand which eventually helped them to win the match.

In IPL 2010 Mahela Jayawardene opened the innings for Kings XI Punjab and made a wonderful score of 110 not out of just 59 balls which helped the team to chase a mammoth target of 201 runs set by Kolkata Knight Riders. He continued to perform for the rest of the tournament. In 2010 ICC World Twenty20 he again opened the innings for Sri Lanka and made 81 of just 51 balls against New Zealand. He even played ICC Cricket World Cup for Sri Lanka. Kochi Tuskers Kerala selected him for IPL 2011 and also gave him an opportunity to lead the side. He was the captain of this team and presently got selected to play for the Delhi Daredevils.

Career Highlights

In a total of 373 One day International matches, Jayawardene has scored 10596 runs with a high score of 144 runs and a strike rate of 78.08. This also includes 15 centuries, 66 half centuries and 190 catches.

Some of the title ranks that Jayawardene achieved include Best Captain of the Year, ICC, 2006, Wisden Cricketer of the Year, 2007, and twice winner of the Man of the Series, Test cricket. He became the Man of the Match, Test Cricket eight times. He was the Man of the Series, ODI in four occasions and in 13 matches, he was the Man of the Match, ODI.