Sunset on a truly gifted Test great
View(s):Call me cynical or slightly reality-challenged. But for the life of me I could not see what the great big fuss was all about. The leadership turned up en masse so as not to miss the event – or the attendant photo ops. Seasoned cricketers applauding restrainedly from the sidelines as much as churlish schoolboys shoving and pushing for that elusive autograph were equally represented. Confirmed workaholics and management trainees on probation alike took a day off (or played hooky) to be there for the grand send-off. And while the Man of the Moment’s infant progeny slept in his thoughtful-looking mater’s arms, the crowds that congregated at the retiring hero’s home grounds swelled the Close with far more than a breathless hush…
The Don himself could not have doffed his cricketing cap for good with more ceremony and fanfare than Denagamage Praboth Mahela de Silva Jayawardene did earlier this week…
As his family looks on, Mahela says goodbye to the fans. Pic by Wasantha Siriwardene
So what is Mahela, who is he – that all his swains, and sainted aunts, and legion of sundry fans, commend him so highly? Well might one ask: I did, of myself; and so did my dear heart of seventeen summers! But between us, Wisden, and Wikipedia, we could only dredge up the shadow of a statistic of an answer. So here, for the record, is what the Great Scorer has said when He came and wrote the final tally against our champion’s name…
Skippered Sri Lanka in 38 Tests (18 won, 12 lost, 8 drawn). Runs as the national captain: 3665, avg. 59.11.
Test cricket debut: 1997. ODI debut: 1998. First Sri Lankan batsman to score over 50 in both Test debut and Test closing innings.
Highest ever score by a Sri Lankan in Test cricket (374, second Test, Sri Lanka vs. South Africa). Fourth-highest Test score, and highest by a right-hander.
Test cricket average: c. 50. ODI average: 30+. In 624 international matches, the second-highest number of appearances after Sachin.
And since the devil is in the details, here’s the gravamen at a glance:
149 Test matches
252 innings
11,814 runs
49.84 average
Also consider the import and ramifications of this…
First Sri Lankan (one of only three so far) to score over 10,000 Test runs.
“Widely considered one of the best batsmen produced by Sri Lanka.” “Generally held in high regard as a legend of the modern game along with teammate Kumar Sangakkara.”
Together with teammate Sanga, MJ (as he is known) holds the record for most third-wicket partnership runs (5,890), with a total tally of 6,554 runs scored together – the third highest such.
A key senior member of the side which won the T20 World Cup (2014). Also featured prominently in sides that made the finals of two World Cups (2007, 2011), and the T20 World Cup (2012).
A star inner-ring fielder, securing the most number of close-in run-outs in ODI cricket of any fieldsman since 2005 (this per CricInfo).
Named the International Cricket Council’s “Best International Captain of the Year” (2006). Nominated the same ICC’s “Best Test Cricket Player of the Year” (2007).
Scored 7 double-centuries in Tests (with only three others – one of them Sanga, who else… having surpassed this…).
Scored 34 Test tons, to be joint-sixth for most number of Test 100s; and second in the list of most centuries by a Sri Lankan – after (wait for it) Sanga.
Scored a total of 51 career tons, including a T20 100.
Taken 77 catches off the other star in the local side, Murali, being one half of a stellar fielder-bowler combo – the most prolific in Tests. Taken a total of 205 Test catches.
World record for the highest Test cricket partnership (624), with – who else, again? – Sanga.
My question was – and still is – so, does this accomplishment alone (alone? alone!) warrant the spontaneous overflow of strong emotion that we witnessed on Tuesday at the SSC as Mahela walked (nay, was transported – shoulder-high) back into his Last Pavilion? Do not other contemporary – or maybe legendary, in days of yore – and mythical, as in the mists of time before the ICC, et al. – cricketers have similar if not surpassing scores against their initials to show for their pains?
Yes. Also, no! It was beginning to dawn on me that in Mahela (much as we tend to compare him with his erstwhile brother knight-in-arms Sanga, and as much as such comparisons are odious) there is something that defies the mere fame of an outstanding record. Ye lad of yon millions of adoring Sri Lankan sporting-in-general and cricketing-in-particular aficionados has more than a drab footnote to add to the statistics. He has a legacy. And this is – at least part of – it:
Mahela made an outstanding contribution in his time. [Quod erat demonstrandum, you say?] See the statistics above, wilt thou – there’s a dear… To that panoply of accomplishments, I’d simply add that the master strategist had the mind of a field marshal and the heart of a mild-mannered fox – all the more dangerous for his diffidence. That he’d couch his achievements in the all-too-familiar catchphrase of the team needing “the guys” to “put up their hands” made his singular legerdemain all the more sterling.
Mahela played “the gentleman’s game” all the time. To cite but once instance that impressed yours truly, he resigned from vice-captaincy after our team’s World Cup defeat. I mean, really, who on earth does that these days? He also bagged the LG ICC Spirit of Cricket Award in 2013. On and off the field, his conduct has been courteous (not cavalier like someone else we won’t name – again), transparent, and sincere. Self-effacing about sums it up. He strikes one as the kind of person who isn’t thinking about himself at all, or not very much, except about what to do as a strategist or tactician.
Mahela ‘retired gracefully’ in the fullness of time. I saw him first walk the talk when he ‘walked’ – at 91, in a Test against New Zealand – for which a rival ‘Kiwi’ admirer put up MJ for the Spirit of Cricket award (which he won that year: 2013). In February this year, in an Asia Cup fixture against Pakistan, MJ became only the second cricketer after Sachin to appear in 600 international matches. He won’t be seen in 700. Then it was time for him to step down from T20 cricket after helping secure the T20 World Cup title for the home country. Now this. Evidently he knows when it’s time to call it quits in the interest of sport, side, state, self. We know lots of others who could take a leaf out of this book, don’t we, dears?
I can see more clearly his mettle now that the reigning national hero has gone… Once said to have “a pleasant demeanour”, a “calculating, street-smart mind”, and “nerves of steel” – to say nothing of a ruthless, relentless striving for perfection or as near as possible. No doubt he has feet of unsubtle clay, like all real heroes. But what a sophisticated treasure he carries in an earthen vessel.