Angelo Mathews looking to emulate James Anderson and prolong his career

Angelo Mathews has admitted to being inspired by the England pacer James Anderson as he looks to prolong his career. 

Mathews is currently featuring in the 100th Test match of his career against Pakistan at Galle. 

The 35-year-old has become only the sixth Sri Lankan player to reach the milestone. Since his debut in 2009, the middle-order batter has amassed 6876 runs at an average of 45.23, with 13 hundreds. 

Ahead of the Test match, Mathews reckoned that age is just a number, and wants to give his best shot across all three formats. 

"My inspiration is Jimmy Anderson. At 40 being a fast bowler he still wants to play a couple of more years," Mathews told reporters. 

"See, it's the drive that you have towards the game. It's not going to stop here. I still have a few more years."

Mathews hopes for including more Test matches

Mathews has urged Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to include more red-ball matches in the near future. 

Sri Lanka have just seven Test matches in their schedule over the next 18 months, due to the teams preparing for the ICC events in the limited-overs. 

In 2014, the talented all-rounder led his country to a first red-ball series victory in England.

"I prefer Test cricket. We like if there are many more Test matches because most of the leading players want to play more Test cricket," he said.

At the time of writing, Mathews was at the crease on 12*, with Sri Lanka in a strong position, having scored 120/2 in the second Test fixture. 

Currently, Sri Lanka are sixth in the World Test Championship (WTC) table with a point percentage of 48.15.

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