Sanath Jayasuriya

Sanath Jayasuriya

Sanath Teran Jayasuriya (Sinhala: සනත් ටෙරාන් ජයසූරිය, born 30 June 1969) is a former Sri Lankan cricketer and a politician. Jayasuriya was an all-rounder, who had an international cricket career that spread over two decades. He made his One Day International debut against Australia at Melbourne on Boxing Day of 1989 and his Test debut against New Zealand at Hamilton in February, 1991. Jayasuriya is the only player to score more than 13,000 runs and capture more than 300 wickets in One Day Internationals and he is regarded as one of the best all rounders in the history of Limited overs cricket. He was named the Most Valuable Player of the 1996 Cricket World Cup and Wisden Cricketers' Almanack broke an age old tradition by naming him one of Five Cricketers’ of the Year 1997 despite not playing the previous season in England. Jayasuriya was also the captain of the Sri Lankan cricket team from 1999 to 2003. He retired from test cricket in December 2007 and from limited overs cricket in June, 2011.

Jayasuriya ran for public office at the 2010 Sri Lankan general elections and was elected to the parliament from his native Matara District. He topped the UPFA parliamentary election list for Matara district by obtaining 74,352 preferential votes.