OTD: Sanath Jayasuriya scored 340 against India, Sri Lanka registered mammoth target of 952 runs
Sri Lanka legend Sanath Jayasuriya played one of the finest and most dominating innings in the history of Test cricket. On August 6, 1997, he individually scored 340 runs against India in Colombo, and Sri Lanka registered a mammoth total of 952, losing only 6 wickets.
Sri Lanka legend Sanath Jayasuriya played one of the finest and most dominating innings in the history of Test cricket. On August 6, 1997, he individually scored 340 runs against India in Colombo, and Sri Lanka registered a mammoth total of 952, losing only 6 wickets. The match ended in a draw but remained as one of the highest-scoring events in cricket.
Jayasuriya and Roshan Mahanama batted throughout two full days' play; Roshan got a 225-run knock, and Aravinda de Silva scored 126. With the help of those individual brilliances, the home team encrypted 952/6d—the highest score in test history.
The partnership between Jayasuriya and Roshan became one of the main attractions of the game. In all, they went on to add 576, a record that remained untouched for nine years before being shattered by two other Sri Lankan legends, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara. They added 624 against South Africa in 2006. In that encounter between India and Sri Lanka in August of 1997, India too had multiple centurions. Navjot Singh Sidhu, then the captain of Team India, Sachin Tendulkar, and Mohammad Azharuddin scored centuries in the match, and India put 537/8d on the scoreboard, batting first.
Jayasuriya was trying to avoid follow-on
537 itself was a massive total, but the mammoth was yet to come. Marvan Atapattu's early departure turned out to be a false hope only. When Atapattu was dismissed, Sri Lanka was 39/1. After that it was only about Sanath Jayasuriya and Roshan Mahanama. After 39/1, India got the second wicket when Sri Lanka was on 615. Jayasuriya had made 340 from 578 balls in 799 minutes, with 36 fours and two sixes. Showing respect to India's competitive total, the first target of Jayasuriya was to avoid the follow-on.
"I wasn't going after the record—at least not until the end of the fourth day, when someone told me I was only 50 short. I felt a great pressure on me when I came out to bat [on the fifth morning], and obviously I am disappointed now—but at least my country has made a great achievement," he said.
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