By Rex Clementine  

There was heartbreak for Angelo Mathews in Chittagong this week as he missed out on a double hundred in the opening Test match against Bangladesh. He joins 11 other batsmen to have missed out on a double hundred by one run. But he’s the only one to have been dismissed both on 99 and 199!

The 99 dismissal was when Mathews was young – 22 years of age – while the 199 is when he is in the twilight of his career at the age of 34. A lot has happened between the two dismissals. Mathews had gone on to captain Sri Lanka; once stepped down and once sacked, has helped the team to their maiden Test series win in England and whitewashed the Aussies 3-0.

The 99 dismissal happened in Bombay in 2009. The Wankhede was under construction to host the World Cup final and Sri Lanka’s Test match was shifted to Cricket Club of India, a stone’s throw from Bombay’s posh new ground. Also known as Brabourne Stadium, it was the first Test match to be played there in more than 30 years.

Mathews had skippered Sri Lanka Under-19 and had been taken for a tour of South Africa with the ‘A’ team. After the tour, Head Coach of the ‘A’ team Chandika Hathurusinghe told the press that Mathews should be fast tracked into the senior side. So he found himself being thrown into the deep end pretty early in his career and came out with his head held high.

There was a lot of promise those days. Mathews used to generate a pretty good pace. A surprise choice in Sri Lanka’s T-20 World Cup squad to the UK, he became the cynosure of all eyes with a couple of stunning catches at Trent Bridge.  But it was his bowling that stood out in the semi-final against West Indies at The Oval.

Chris Gayle and company are a dangerous opposition in T-20 format and nobody wants to play them in a knockout clash. Mathews was entrusted the task of bowling with the new ball and he did so well accounting for West Indies’ top three. His figures of three for 16 in four overs made everyone to scream that this is the next big star of Sri Lankan cricket.

For decades, we have been searching for that fast-bowling all-rounder who’d help us balance the side, especially travelling overseas. Mathews was earmarked as the next Jacques Kallis; a penetrative bowler, an electric fielder and an excellent finisher in the short formats of the game.

But skipper Kumar Sangakkara had other ideas. He wanted Mathews to feature in Test match cricket as well. Not everyone bought into his arguments but there’s little doubt that Sanga was ahead of his time as a captain. As an administrator though, he’s a pale shadow of his former self.

Mathews was handed his Test debut in Galle two weeks after his exploits at the London Oval. His first Test wicket was Younis Khan, Pakistan’s captain. He also proved that he’s no mug with the bat in the longer format of the game, quite capable of playing the waiting game against a quality attack.

But it was on his first Test tour to India later that year we witnessed what exactly Mathews was capable of doing with the bat and why Hathurusinghe wanted him rubbing shoulders with the big boys.

Test matches are well attended in Bombay and hometown boy Sachin Tendulkar is obviously the crowd favourite.

Mathews had batted superbly and was on the verge of scoring his maiden Test hundred. He was batting with Muttiah Muralitharan and there was not much hope of the stand lasting long. So in a bid to complete his hundred, he took on Sachin’s arm and was run out for 99. He was in tears, unable to hide his disappointment and emotions. Youthful exuberance they say.

Unlike in Bombay, in Chittagong Mathews wasn’t crying. He was in fact joking. He’s seen it all and being the father of three kids he knows there’s no point in crying over spilled milk.

Sri Lanka were unlucky not to have his services in the 2011 World Cup final in Bombay as he was injured. The injury also ruled him out of the Test leg of Sri Lanka’s tour of England. But he returned for the limited over games amidst some controversy.

For a while Mathews had been groomed as Sri Lanka’s future captain and instead of him being named vice-captain to T.M. Dilshan, the job was given to a total outsider who wasn’t sure of his place in the side. This was a time when selections were being done with little transparency and if a World Cup was around the corner, the first name they would write down was Jeevan Mendis.

The maiden Test hundred would come in 2011 against the Aussies at SSC. Senior cricket writer Malcolm Conn, however, was not at all happy with the way the hundred was scored as he opinioned that Mathews had batted too slow denying an opportunity for Sri Lanka to level the series.

It was just a matter of time before Mathews was named captain. He first got the job in 2012, a day after his 25th birthday. He has seen both unprecedented success and new lows as skipper. Thrashing Aussies 3-0 was the highlight of his stint while the lowest point was when Sri Lanka suffered a first-ever series loss to Zimbabwe. He stepped down as captain but after a matter of months was urged to take over the captaincy again only to be sacked months later on flimsy grounds. Like Ranil Wickremesinghe in politics, Mathews has seen it all in cricket.

Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene have not minced any words that by this stage Mathews should have scored over 10,000 runs in both forms of the game. But the fact of the matter is Mathews is far from it and wouldn’t even get to the milestone in a single format. That’s a shame. There’s a general consensus that he didn’t push himself. Injuries also have played their part although he’s been accused of letting the grass grow under his feet. It was a rude shock when the team’s best player in white-ball cricket was given the cold shoulder last year and was axed from ODI and T-20 sides.  Sanga and Mahela were responsible for grooming Mathews as a leader. They may have turned cut throat too having realized the wheels were coming off. However, they could have stopped short of twisting the knife.

Last year’s contract dispute was ugly. As the senior-most player Mathews stood his ground when the same people who had fought tooth and nail for the pound of flesh when they were playing the game wanted to bring down current player payments. Arrogance is not a good thing, but sometimes when you are taking on legends, you need an arrogant chap in your ranks just to put the legends in their places. Mathews was that arrogant chap who told the legends to fly a kite when he was offered peanuts as an annual retainer. Okay, okay, that lawyer was a mess. But in every walk of life, we have these misfits. In other words, square pegs in round holes. There was Cabraal handling the national economy, there was Hemasiri handling national security and at one point even Mervyn Silva as Media Minister.

Mathews told the legends that he will play for free and to his credit played without a contract. For a guy who earned US$ one million a year in the IPL to be offered an annual retainer of US$ 40,000 was an insult. During the dispute, Mathews also apparently told off Tom Moody. You don’t see many people having a go at big Tom. That’s the kind of leader you like to have led your national teams as we have too many yes men at the moment.

Having talked the talk in the boardrooms, Mathews had to walk the walk and he did so in Chittagong batting for close to ten hours in the scorching heat as the temperature exceeded 40 degrees Celsius. There was a lot of application and all the fitness work done in the gym was paying off.

Mathews will be featuring in his 96th Test match next week. The milestone of 100 Tests will come in a couple of months against Pakistan. It will be a huge moment for him. Just five Sri Lankans have reached the milestone before and more importantly, no cricketer has bounced back as much as Mathews after being written off. Don’t be surprised if he’s back as captain for next year’s 50 over World Cup.