First published in 2013

So guys, when did the two of you first meet?

KS: I think we would have been 15 or 16.

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MJ: Yes, Kumar lived in Kandy and I lived in Colombo but we played against each other maybe once or twice when we were at school and then we hooked up when he came to Colombo and started playing club and international cricket together. That’s when our friendship began to build.

Any run-ins or rivalries between you in those early days?

MJ: No, not really! School cricket and club cricket was just a lot of fun.

KS: And then when I got into the national side Mahela was already vice-captain. We are the same age but Mahela was already playing under 24 and A team level when he was 17 and had been earmarked for national greatness.

When did you start to become close friends and see each other outside of cricket?

KS: I think when we started playing international cricket together. We were in a team that had a lot of senior players and we were the same age and had a lot of similar interests.

MJ: Yes, that’s a good point, because when I first came into the Sri Lanka side there was no one who was in my age group; Kumar was probably the first person of my age to come in after I made my debut in 1997. He came into the side in 2000 and as soon as he did we just clicked, because I needed somebody!

KS: It wasn’t an intimidating dressing room, in fact it was a lot of fun, and Murali always spent a lot of time with the younger players. But it’s great when you have someone who shares your interests and you have a lot of things you can do and talk about, on and off the field.

KS: I think that’s any player’s responsibility really, to leave cricket a better place and to leave the dressing room an easier place to come through; to set foundations and guide with advice. But at the end of the day I think our responsibility is very simple: to play Test cricket to the best of our ability so we can inspire young players to reach those standards. Mahela has got close to 11,000 Test runs, over 11,000 one-day runs, over 30 hundreds. What better way to inspire the next generation than to do what’s he’s done? To play the game in such a manner, to win games for Sri Lanka, to leave that legacy.

MJ: There have been a lot of foundations laid by a lot of Sri Lankan cricketers over the years and our challenge was to take Sri Lankan cricket forward from where it was. We are a tiny island and what we’ve accomplished is amazing and we’re passionate about our game and very proud we’re playing for our country. We want to see new players coming through, breaking our records and going further forward, because that means we’ll have done a good job in giving them a pathway.

And when you do both retire, the partnership continues?

KS: Of course. We’ve already started a couple ventures together.

MJ: Most of the things we’ve started are together, in charity work and other business ventures, so we’ll definitely be partners for quite some time I think! It’s been fun and it’s a fantastic friendship we have on and off the field. It’s not overshadowing each other. It’s a very healthy partnership; we feed off each other and we complement each other.