Mahela Jayawardene is one of Sri Lanka’s finest and classiest players produced in present day cricket. Every youngster starting out in the game of cricket wants to be like him or his partner in crime, Kumar Sangakkara. The soft spoken and quite funny former captain of the Sri Lankan cricket team has set a standard when it comes to being one of the best batsmen today in this ‘Gentlemen’s Game’. His thirst for chasing runs and wining matches has always been outstanding and his name is a household name for all cricket fans around the world. Jayawardene made his debut in the record breaking test match in 1997 against India at R.P.S., Colombo and has added 66 to Sri Lanka’s first innings score of 952/6, the highest test score ever. Mahela Jayawardena was also a very valuable member in the Sri Lankan T20 team which won the 2014 ICC Twenty20 World Cup; a victory the lions and Jayawardene have been waiting for a long while.
His last match in test cricket came to an end with a match against Pakistan and as much as it was met with understanding, there was much tears shed in the whole cricket community. Even though a lot of people were surprised by the retirement of Mahela, he has thought over and over about his decision; ‘I thought it would hit me after the announcement, but it really didn’t. I was happy with it and I knew I made the right decision. I have no regrets with it’. He has not retired from one day cricket and is already looking forward to training starting very soon.
Now that he is filled with spare time, he spends most of it with his family; a joy that he missed out on while touring with the team. With a new baby in the mix, he says his wife, Christina, has been doing most of the hard work for the good part of the first 6 months. Even though he says that he has been doing ‘the dirty work of changing nappies and having sleepless nights’ when he is home occasionally, he is more emphatic towards his wife since he’s been home for full days at a time now. ‘With the little one, it’s exhausting. Running around her all day for just one day is like playing a five-day test match’, he says understanding the patience and the hard work of his wife. The daughter, named Sansa Araya, is now 10 months old and is definitely taking after the mother. ‘I tell people it’s a relief she looks like my wife. Imagine if she looked like me!’, he said laughing.
When he is at home, having a break from cricket, he says he catch up on TV. He loves all kinds of sports that his wife has reserved a special TV just for his sport viewing times and he enjoys Golf, Rugby, Football and all others he can spend time watching. Talking about his TV viewing habits, he says that he’s a big fan of Game of Thrones – but the daughter was NOT named after the character ‘Sansa Arya’ in GoT… at least we know she’s not directly named after the character. His favourite movies are Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator, Coming to America and Avatar (Not the Last Airbender), and is excited by the prospect of catching up on all the upcoming movies and the movies he has missed out on.
With his new found free time and more time spent with the daughter, he is also determined to treat his wife and make up for the times he was not at home. He insists that he’s not a good cook and his wife would say ‘I could safely fry an egg. SAFELY!’. He says Kumar Sangakkara is actually a better cook, but he’s looking forward to ‘get into the kitchen and make a mess’. The gentleman in him perks up and says he can’t be classified as a hopeless romantic, but there is definitely room to improve. We will definitely check back with him and his wife next year on his ‘improvement’ on being a ‘hopeless romantic’.
Getting the conversation back in to cricket, he is optimistic about the newcomers in the team and stress that the people can’t expect them to perform in a more professional right away as even he started at the bottom and worked his way to where he is now. Even when Muttaiah Muralitharan retired, people wondered if Sri Lanka would any matches after. The fact is Sri Lanka kept on performing, winning matches, and they will continue to do so even after he retires. He says that there will be more young players who will come and show different ways of winning matches and going forward as long as they work hard for what they love. With new game plans, analysing teams such as New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, Jayawardene says that the next World Cup is definitely a top priority for the Sri Lankan cricket team.
Taking a trip down memory lane, he reminisced about winning the T20 World Cup, the partnership between him and Kumar Sangakkara and gaining 624 runs and hitting a few 100s at Lord’s Cricket Ground – which is his favourite grounds to play in – has been top three most memorable moments in his cricketing life. He also mentioned the recent Captain’s Dinner held in England, where he and Kumar Sangakkara were placed among the best of the best in cricket. He described and acted out their respond which we could only compare to two kids at Disneyland.
It has been an amazing career doing what he loves every day for a living, and especially pleasant as he can’t see himself doing an eight to five job and sitting behind a desk every day. After a long journey of leaving a legendary record behind he says it’s time to stop ‘living a life on someone else’s schedule’ and he would like to get back to his own schedule where he can pay more attention to his family and other business areas he is interested in and the goodwill work he takes great pleasure in being a part of.
Lastly he spoke about his ‘partner in crime’ and said even though they will not play together as much as before, they still have an understanding that is similar when it comes to everyday life decisions. Even his retirement has been discussed over and over with Sangakkara, match after match, and it was agreed that ‘when you feel it’s time to go, it’s time to go’. They still have their restaurant, ‘Ministry of Crabs’ and Jayawardene jokingly says the reason for its success is because neither he nor Sangakkara cooks there. They’re planning on expanding the restaurant without losing its ambiance and level of service while making sure it’ll never become something less than what it has represented all this time.
Mahela Jayawardene is undoubtedly a gentleman on the field and off the field. He is a great batsman, friend, mentor, captain, and father and now it’s time to excel at being a father. As much as Sri Lankan and world cricket fans are mourning the retirement of this amazing cricketer, he is still setting examples to the youth showing them the importance of family and finding the time to enjoy life with them. Ending with the quote which he lives by; ‘Control things you can control’, he definitely proved that after a great career in cricket, doing all that he can, he has now changed his priorities to what matters most to him; his family.
Images courtesy of the Internet. 😀
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