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Sri Lankan batting great Sanath Jayasuriya is celebrating his 56th birthday on June 30, 2025. One of the leading run scorers for Sri Lanka across formats, Jayasuriya made and broke several records during his 22-year career in international cricket. Initially, Jayasuriya started his career as a left-arm orthodox spinner and was known as a bowler who also bat a bit.
However, over the years, Sanath Jayasuriya went on to become one of the best batters to play for Sri Lanka. He has played 110 Tests, 445 ODIs and 31 T20Is in his international career amassing 20966 runs in all three formats combined along with 42 hundreds and 103 half-centuries. He is all-time third highest run scorer for Sri Lanka across formats.
Sanath Jayasuriya was a part of the Sri Lankan team than won the Cricket World Cup title in 1996. He played a pivotal role in Sri Lanka’s title triumph with his all-round performance scoring 221 runs with the bat and taking seven wickets with ball from six matches in that edition and player of the tournament. He was also the captain of the Sri Lankan team shared the 2002 Champions Trophy title with India.
Sanath Jayasuriya Career Records
1. 2nd Longest Career in ODIs: Sanath Jayasuriya is just behind Sachin Tendulkar in the list of players with longest careers in the ODI format. He represented Sri Lanka in 445 ODIs for 21 years and 184 days from 1989 to 2011.
2. 5th Highest Run scorer in ODI: Sanath Jayasuriya comes fifth in the list of all-time highest run scorers in the history of ODI cricket and second for Sri Lanka in the format. He has scored 13430 runs from 445 ODI matches at an average of 32.36 hitting 28 hundreds and 68 fifties.
3. Oldest player to score 100 in ODI: At the age of 39 years and 212 days, Sanath Jayasuriya became the second youngest player to score a hundred in the ODI format. He achieved the milestone in a match against India in Dambulla on January 28, 2009.
