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Dhananjaya de Silva-led Sri Lanka clean sweeped Tim Southee's New Zealand 2-0 in a two-match Test series. They outperformed the visitors in all departments and gained a major boost in their standings at the World Test Championships points table. Prabath Jayasuriya won the Player of the Series award for taking 18 wickets across two matches and helping his team pick up crucial wins against the Black Caps. However, despite this extraordinary performance against the Kiwis, Jayasuriya missed out on a golden opportunity to become the first player in the past 128 years to get 100 Test wickets in their first 16 matches.
Prabath Jayasuriya has taken 97 wickets in his 16 Test match career thus far. In the first 16 Test matches, George Lohmann (101) is the only bowler to have more wickets than Prabath. It took Lohmann 16 Tests after his debut in 1886 to reach 100 Test wickets.
Sydney Barnes became the fastest bowler to reach the milestone since the turn of the 20th century when he did so in 1912 during his 17th Test match. Furthermore, Yasir Shah took just 17 Test matches to become the fastest bowler to 100 wickets in the twenty-first century. Jayasuriya will become the fastest Sri Lankan to 100 Test wickets even if he is unable to overtake either of the other bowlers. It has taken no bowler in the nation fewer than 24 Test matches to reach the historic milestone.
Jayasuriya on missing out on the record
The star Sri Lankan bowler was focused on his performance and said that is not a record man so don't have much to miss out on the milestone.
“I'm not a records man. (On Peiris) He is very good, he bowled consistently at one line and length. Very positive for him. This was a bit harder than the previous Test. When the ball gets soft, the wicket gets softer. We just trying to do our basics and no need for us to panic. Just need to bowl wicket to wicket and create pressure on them,” said Jayasuriya in the post-match presentation.
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