Sri Lanka’s Kamindu Mendis broke into the record books of Test cricket to emerge as the fastest Asian and the second-quickest in the world to score 1,000 runs, leaving everyone in the talking halls on Friday. As has been anticipated since the morning session, Sri Lanka took the declaration route to theirs at an impressive 602/5.

Kamindu’s Feat..

Kamindu achieved this feat in just 13 innings — to match the legendary Don Bradman, who also achieved this in 13 innings over seven Tests way back in July 1930. The record for the quickest to 1,000 runs remains with Herbert Sutcliffe and Everton Weekes, both of whom did it in 12 innings across nine Tests.

This means Kamindu broke the previous Asian record held by former Indian cricketer Vinod Kambli, who reached 1,000 runs in 14 innings of 12 Tests. The current youngster Yashasvi Jaiswal now ranks third among the fastest Asians with this achievement, having achieved the milestone in 16 innings across 9 tests.

Kamindu’s journey also saw him become the fastest Asian to score five Test centuries, which in just 13 innings he achieved. In terms of the overall position, he holds the third place shared with Bradman while Weekes remains at the top with 10 innings, followed by Neil Harvey and Sutcliffe with 12.

More importantly, Kamindu is the first Test batsman to have made scores of 50 or more in all his first eight Tests. He has been in outstanding batting form during the New Zealand series so far, making a century in the first Test; Sri Lanka had emerged victorious by 63 runs.

In the second Test, Sri Lanka has had a great beginning after centuries from Kamindu (182), Dinesh Chandimal (116), and Kusal Mendis (106).