Sri Lanka has some very good batsmen, but are any of them great?

To me, only Aravinda,Mahela and Sanga are in that elite category.They may or may not have the averages to back it up but they are extremely good batsmen.Mahela haven't had too many chances in Aus,NZ and SA to show his talent but that is no excuse for his dismal away record.But he started playing better as he matured.First 3 years of the noughties were really bad for him..

Angelo Mathews,Dinesh Chandimal and Lahiru Thirimanne are the potential future greats of SL batting and their away record should also improve as did SL with every new generation. Mathews is a quality batsman and his averages don't mean much he has only played a few games.

Average of 40+ away is more than good and of course at home you are supposed to dominate.

To be in the Same Category as Viv Richards,Lara, Sachin etc only Sanga is able to do that from SL.And I don't consider someone like Kallis to be a great batsman(great cricketer no doubt) even though his record is probably the best out there.

Liked your question and yes I'm a Lankan.

Mahela Jayawardene Sanath Jayasurya Arvinda D Silva Kumara Sangakarra Marvan Attapattu

Ok how about you talking about batting averages of players from other countries, specially India? Sanga, Jayawardne, Dilshan and Samaweera all have great avg. away. Difference is always the case for any ''great'' batsman.. Indian team is ''said to'' contain ''great'' players but none of them could be considered real match winners.. They cannot play under pressure and SL always trash them in important games, games that matter... This is why they say that the Indian players are so good at one thing... ''modelling'' but suck at ''cricketing'' ....

If we keep averages aside, then there are many legendary batsman Sri Lanka had produced. Like Sanath Jayasuriya. He scored a magnificent 340 against India at Colombo. Then, Mahela is another legend. He just shied by 26 runs to get the 400 mark. Also Sangakkara is an amazing batsman. You can't forget Arjuna Ranatunga for his contributions to Sri Lanka cricket. Chaminda Vaas, Muttiah Muralidaran and many others are big names for Sri Lankan bowling attack.

Kumar Sangakkara is certainly up there with the best. He's probably in Tier 2 of batting greats, in the company of Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis.

Mahela Jayawardene is an undisputed flat track bully. I loathe comparisons and analysis of cricket statistics, but this one is too good to resist.

All his test innings of 200 or more have come in the subcontinent... Consider his only ton in India, where he made 275. Where was this made? Right, on the dead wicket of Ahmedabad not too long ago. Heres the scorecard, hundreds galore...

http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/430881.htm...

Reminds you of the recent SSC test I'm sure...

So lets re-calculate Mahela's average in India by excluding this innings. Thatll be 353 runs in 9 innings, a mediocre average of 39.22.

You can do the same for his performances in Pakistan, where he has made one score of 240. He wasnt the only one, as Samaraweera made his own double ton and Younus made a triple!

http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/388993.htm...

His next best effort on Pakistani soil is just 57.

To put it simply, his away average of 42.15 is way over inflated thanks to those 2 high scores in India and Pakistan. He is a stylish batsman, VVS Laxman type, but not good enough.

edit: Forgot to include his modified away/neutral average after excluding those 2 innings... It comes to 36.775. Difference of nearly 30.

k..we beat england 5-0 we are flat track bullies..we rape India both home and away we are still flat track bullies..We kick the A**es of New zealeaders both home and away we are still flat track bullies..Australia aren't even coming to play with us since years ago..

BTW u know India are no.1..I just assume that u are an Indian refugee living in New Zealand cuz it's perfectly clear that u are trying to degrade SL and trying to be nice by calling Sangakkara great so that we won't suspect that u are an Indian cuz u are saying something Nice..Obviously u spend a lot of time copy pasting every batsman's average from test match summary so u surely have to be outraged by SL's latest performance..U are Indian mate..don't try to hide it..No matter where u live Indian are all the same...

Anyway all our batsmen's away average is still a bit higher than all the Indians Home average which is even more shameful..

edit: Remove NT Paranavitana and Methews from the list..They just started international cricket and are yet to debut on a series away..

All of them are worthless.Sangakarra's away average is highly inflated by his scores against Zimbabwe & Bangladesh.

His only century of any importance abroad,192 in Australia,was also made on a flat pitch.

The less said about the others,the better it will be.

You're right. If we go by the average, only Sangakara stands there. This is why SL are known as the lions of their own land. They become wet cats when they come outside of their country.

I am agree with this answer. Good data and analysis of them.

ya sangakarra and jayawardene are the two batting legends for test cricket.. and bastmans like samaraveera had got lot of good partnerships with those two... when dilshan gives them a good start then they had a really good batting line up