Roshen Silva reaches landmark in his career

Wednesday, 10 December 2025 00:46 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Joins elite list of Sri Lankans with 10,000 first-class runs

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Roshen Silva

Former Sri Lanka Test cricketer Roshen Silva reached a landmark in his career when he joined a band of Sri Lankan cricketers who have scored 10,000 or more runs in their first-class cricket careers.

Silva achieved this feat when he scored an unbeaten 100 for BRC against Moors SC in a Major Club 3-day match played at the Colts grounds. It was his 29th century in a first-class career spanning 19 years. With the great Kumar Sangakkara, Silva is the only batsman in the list who averages 50.

A right-hand batsman who is not gifted as some of those who appear in the list Silva nevertheless has been a consistent run-getter at domestic level. He broke into the Sri Lanka Test side against India at Delhi in 2017 and made an immediate impression of his steely determination and concentration with a match-saving knock of 74* off 154 balls, that enabled Sri Lanka to draw the Test after being set a tall target of 410 to chase. He collected a third ball duck in the first innings but he made up for it in the second innings batting for just over three hours adding a valuable 94 runs for the sixth wicket in an unbroken partnership with Niroshan Dickwella (44*) that saw Sri Lanka finish on 299-5. He appeared for his country in 12 Tests the last being against Australia at Brisbane in 2019 scoring 702 runs (avg. 35.10) with one century and 5 fifties.

Silva is one of the majority of batsmen in the list who have gone onto play for Sri Lanka, the exceptions are Gehan Mendis, Laddie Outschoorn and Sajith Fernando. Clive Inman represented Ceylon (as it was then known) in unofficial tests and Hemantha Wickramaratne in ODIs.

Mendis who tops the list with 21,436 runs accumulated his runs playing for Sussex and Lancashire in the English county championship. So did Outschoorn for Worcestershire. Inman gathered the majority of his runs representing Leicestershire and Derbyshire.

Amongst the generation of cricketers who scored runs for their country as well as in Sri Lanka’s domestic matches, Kumar Sangakkara has accumulated the most runs – 20,911 and scored the largest number of hundreds – 64 with Mahela Jayawardene, who is the only other batsman to make over 50 centuries.

Of the current players Angelo Mathews who retired from Test cricket in June this year and Dinesh Chandimal also figure in the list. In fact Chandimal who scored 152 for Colts against Chilaw Marians CC in the Major Club 3-day match last weekend went past Mathews in the list and being still active has a chance of moving further up the ladder. Current players Oshada Fernando (9790) and Dhananjaya de Silva (9616) are next in line to join the list.