Angelo Mathews - Sri Lanka - Batting Allrounder

A very good allrounder, Angelo Mathews, made his international debut against Zimbabwe in November 2008. He is capable of batting anywhere in the middle-order and is a handy medium pace bowler. Such has been Mathews' impact, that he has become a regular member in all three formats of the game and has also captained the Sri Lankan side with composure.

Incredibly talented and intelligent, Mathews is good at adapting to different situations, despite his inexperience. He played for the Sri Lanka Under-19s when he was just 16 and captained the team in the 2006 Under-19 World Cup.

He made his First-Class debut in 2007-08, but only made an impact in his second season, piling up 696 runs at 58 for Colts CC, which led to his inclusion in the Sri Lanka 'A' side. On the tour to South Africa, Mathews scored an unbeaten 99 with his team chasing 250. His coach, Chandika Hathurasingha, called it a mature innings and uses that innings as a good example for every player to learn from.

In his short career so far, Mathews has put up some superb performances. The 51 against New Zealand in September 2008 helped Sri Lanka to beat the plucky Kiwis. He was involved in a match-winning 137-run stand with Thilan Samaraweera in that game. In the very next match, the marquee allrounder ran through the Indian middle-order as he picked up a career-best 6/19.

There was no looking back as Mathews moved from strength-to-strength. His cool demeanour and strong tactical nous fetched him the Sri Lankan Test captaincy in February 2013. Having long been the heir apparent, Mathews took over the reins from Mahela Jayawardene after the latter expressed his reluctance to carry on following the Australian tour.

Mathews has certainly led from the front. He has pulled off several heists as a finisher in limited overs cricket with the stand out performance being his stellar 77 not out, spurring Sri Lanka to overhaul Australia's 239 from a catastrophic 107-8. His 132-run alliance with Lasith Malinga would rank amongst the game's greatest rearguard actions. He is one of the very few players, who has the ability to lend both ballast and fillip to an innings. Despite a few serious leg injuries, Mathews continues to bowl with verve and purpose. He usually operates in the middle overs, striving to squeeze the opposition with his nippy cutters although, he is no stranger towards shouldering the new ball.

However, he was rendered ineffective in his Indian T20 League stints with Kolkata and the now-defunct Pune, before having no takers in the 2014 auction. Mathews had a terrific 2014. He led Sri Lanka to their fifth Asia Cup title in March 2014. He then hit consecutive centuries against England at Lord’s and Headingley to seal Sri Lanka’s first-ever Test series win in England. Under him, Sri Lanka also won the ODI series 3-2. The England tour was followed by a 2-0 win over Pakistan at home.

Mathews scored his first ODI ton against India in November 2014, however, Sri Lanka were outdone by Virat Kohli's brilliance and lost the game. They subsequently went on to lose all five ODIs, one of their biggest losses in a bilateral series. Mathews came under lot of flak after Sri Lanka suffered massive defeats against New Zealand in the Test series in 2014-15 and they were not able to save the ODI series as well.

Mathews performance in the 2015 World Cup left a lot to be desired. He, however, scored the second fastest fifty by a Sri Lankan in ODIs against Scotland in their final Pool A fixture. His fifty came off just 20 balls. Mathew's captaincy was criticized after Sri Lanka tamely bowed against South Africa in the quarter-final. This defeat was Sri Lanka's first lost in World Cups after 2003, without reaching the semi-finals.

Mathews was bought by the Delhi Daredevils in the 2015 IPL auction for a sum of Rs. 7.5 crores.

The period after 2015 saw the retirement of the Sri Lankan greats in the form of Sangakkara and Jayawardene. And that put Mathews in charge of the immensely tough transition period. It started off with a loss at home against India. Things went from bad to worse during the tour to England where Sri Lanka suffered a massive losing streak and couldn't win a single game across formats. But Mathews turned it around brilliantly in the home series against Australia, the number one side in the world at that point, blanking them 3-0 in the Tests, hence leading Sri Lanka to their first ever whitewash against a major Test playing nation.

His battle with injuries and bowling stress notwithstanding, he continues to remain one of the most revered all-rounders going around in the world today. It was validated by the contract he bagged in the 2017 IPL auction with Delhi Daredevils.

Lesser known facts about Mathews:
1. Mathews married long-time girlfriend Heshani Silva in a Colombo church in July 2013
2. In November 2010, Angelo Mathews was named ' Personality of the year' by living magazine in Sri Lanka

World Cup through the years
Although without a lot of standout performances, he'd played a key role in Sri Lanka's 2011 campaign as a middle-order batsman and a backup seamer. He injured his quadriceps while fielding in the semi-finals, which ruled him out of the final, something that resulted in messing up the team composition. By 2015, he was the skipper of the side as well in what was a rather dismal campaign that ended with Sri Lanka being knocked out in the quarter-finals, the first time since 1999 that they didn't make it to the semis. Once again without a lot of chances to make a big impact, his standout innings was a 20-ball fifty - the fastest by a Sri Lankan in World Cups - against Scotland. Now recalled into the ODI setup on the back of a controversial sacking in the first place, and with Sri Lankan cricket in choppy waters, a huge responsibility lies on Mathews; shoulders to put his experience to good use in helping his made make the knockouts.

By Cricbuzz staff
As of February 2017