Angelo Mathews Test stats: reliable away from home, unfortunate in the 90s

Angelo Mathews has called time on his Test career. Sri Lanka's first Test against Bangladesh, starting in Galle on Tuesday, will be Mathews' last. Irrespective of his performance in his farewell Test, Mathews will finish as the third-most prolific Sri Lanka batter in Tests, behind Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. No other batter from the island country has accumulated over 8000 runs in the format.

Mathews' tally of 119 Tests will also be the fourth-highest for Sri Lanka, after Jayawardene (149), Sangakkara (134) and Muthiah Muralidaran (132).

At present, Mathews has 4323 runs in Sri Lanka, the third-highest for a Sri Lanka batter, and 3844 runs away from home (including neutral venues), also the third-highest from his country - both only behind Sangakkara and Jayawardene.

Among batters with over 6000 Test runs for Sri Lanka, Mathews has the third-highest proportion of runs away from home (47.07%), only behind Dinesh Chandimal (52.11%) and Aravinda de Silva (48.28%).

Mathews is also among the only three Sri Lanka batters to average over 40 away from home (minimum 1000 runs outside Sri Lanka), and is just behind Sangakkara. Nine of Mathews' 16 Test centuries came outside Sri Lanka, joint-third-most alongside Aravinda, and only behind Sangakkara (16) and Jayawardene (11).

All four of Mathews' Player-of-the-Series awards came away from home: against Pakistan in the UAE (2013-14), in England (2014), in Zimbabwe (2020), and in Bangladesh (2022). In 2014, Mathews got 306 runs, including two hundreds, in two Tests on the tour of England, where he led Sri Lanka to their first series win in the country (barring the one-off Test win in 1998).

Among the eight countries against whom Mathews played at least five Tests, he averaged 50-plus against three: Bangladesh (55.38), New Zealand (51.21) and Pakistan (50.03).

In terms of host nations, Mathews averaged 73 in Bangladesh, with two hundreds - including an innings of 199 in 2022. In New Zealand, Mathews averaged 51.38 for his 668 runs, the most runs for a Sri Lanka batter in the country. That included a knock of 120* in Wellington in 2018, as the match resulted in a draw after a marathon partnership of 274 off 655 deliveries between Mathews and Kusal Mendis.

Mathews played six Tests against Pakistan in the UAE, where he averaged 73.37, with one hundred and four fifties. In Pakistan, however, he averaged only 21 across two Tests.

Mathews averaged 40-plus as a Test batter for five years in a row from 2011-15. However, he was even more productive from 2013-15, when he surpassed Sangakkara (2355 runs) as Sri Lanka's highest run-scorer by amassing 2378 runs.

Mathews averaged 74.6 in 2013, and 77.33 in 2014. After the second Test against Pakistan at home in 2014, he was ranked as the No. 3 Test batter in the world. In 2015, Mathews averaged 42.25 and notched up three tons, as many as he did in the previous two years combined. Mathews also averaged 138.5 in 2020, but played only two Tests that year. His 50-plus average years in 2022 and 2023 included three out of four hundreds against Bangladesh and Ireland.

In the three years from 2013-15, Mathews was also the most prolific No. 5 and 6 batter in Tests, scoring 2201 runs at an average of 57.92. Only Misbah-ul-Haq had more 50-plus scores than him (21).

In this span, Mathews averaged 121 against South Africa (two Tests), 79.9 against Pakistan (eight Tests), 76.5 against England (two Tests) and 56.5 against India (three Tests).

Mathews is the only batter in the world to be dismissed on both 99 and 199 in Tests. He was run-out on 99 in his seventh Test, against India in 2009-10, while trying to come back for a second run to complete what would have been his first Test hundred. Mathews then had to wait for nine more Tests to bring up his first Test century: 105* vs Australia in 2011.

Overall, he has so far been dismissed in the 90s five times, the second-most for a Sri Lanka batter, after Jayawardene (six times).

Mathews also missed out on what would have been his second double hundred in Tests, when he was out for 199 against Bangladesh in 2022. That made him the second Sri Lanka batter to be out on 199, after Sanath Jayasuriya in 1997. Sangakkara, meanwhile, was left stranded on 199* against Pakistan in Galle in 2012.

Steve Waugh has a 99* and 199 to his name.

An occasional bowler, Mathews picked 33 Test wickets. Younis Khan was his favourite batter to bowl to, as he dismissed him four times while averaging only 24 runs per dismissal. Two of those wickets came in Mathews' debut Test in 2009.

Mathews' medium-pace seam bowling contributed to Sri Lanka's win in the Headingley Test in 2014. Before his 160 with the bat in the second innings, Mathews bagged 4 for 44 in the first innings, including the wickets of Gary Ballance and Joe Root.