Sri Lanka's star all-rounder and former skipper Angelo Mathews turns 35 on Thursday (June 2). The veteran cricketer has won many matches for Sri Lanka and blossomed into a decisive figure for his team at a time when generational changes were in transition. Talking about Mathews, he was born on June, 1987 in Colombo, Sri Lanka and played his first international ODI match against Zimbabwe way back in 2008 at the age of 21. Since then the recognition followed him as he emerged as a key player for Sri Lanka in all three formats.
Mathews had his first encounter with India in 2009 and he rose to the occasion and bowled he spell of his life which is still etched in everyone's memory. Matthews wreaked havoc by snaring six wickets while conceding 20 runs in a spell of 6 overs.
Back in 2009, the Team India under the captaincy of Mahendra Singh Dhoni was on a tour of Sri Lanka to play a series of four ODIs. During this, India were studded with big wigs like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Dinesh Karthik, Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina.
The Men in Blue and Sri Lanka were level in the series after the first two matches of the tour. The third match, which was played at the Colombo ground, the Indian Team succumbed to Mathews robust bowling and the Men in Blue had to suffer a huge defeat by 39 runs.
Batting first, Sri Lanka belted Indian bowlers left, right and centre, riding on Sanath Jayasuriya's brilliant 98 as they posted a colossal target of 308 runs in 50 overs. While chasing openers Dinesh Karthik and Sachin Tendulkar walked down the pitch. Thushara dismissed Karthik at the score of 16 while Kulasekara sent the Masters Blaster to pavilion for 27. What happened next was a thing to be remembered. Mathews ripped through the India's batting line up and got the scalps of Rahul Dravid (47), Suresh Raina (0), MS Dhoni (8), Yusuf Pathan (1), Harbhajan Singh (4) and Ashish Nehra (1) to fold the entire Indian team for a paltry 168.
Mathews came into spotlight after that supershow. Mathews has so far amassed 5,835 runs and scalped 120 wickets in 218 ODIs for Sri Lanka while 6776 runs and 33 wickets in 96 Test matches. As far as T20I format is concerned, Mathews has 1148 runs to his name with 38 scalps in a total of 78 matches.
