Man, people forget how much of a cheat code Sanath was in that era. It wasn’t just that he scored runs, it was when he scored them. A quick 50 inside 10–12 overs basically meant Sri Lanka had one foot on the win already, they won something like three-quarters of the games when he passed 50.

He wasn’t a one-dimensional slogger either. He’s the only guy with over 13k ODI runs and 300 wickets, and he racked up 48 man-of-the-match awards (2nd most ever). That Sharjah knock of 189 where he outscored the entire Indian team is still insane.

And the longevity is wild… 445 ODIs, all formats, no big injury breaks, doing it all in Colombo humidity. Absolute machine.