He did not have very good relations with Australia, especially his tussle with Shane Warne during world cup 99. Also, during the World Cup 96, Australia and West Indies refused to play their matches in Sri Lanka against Sri Lanka giving a stupid excuse of security problem were punished by destiny when West Indies was beaten by Kenya and Sri Lanka herself took her revenge against Australia defeating them in the most important match of the event.
The Muralitharn controversy was another important event of his career when he fully supported his premier bowler and took his team off the field when Australian umpire was repeatedly giving no balls, calling his bowling action as jerk.
He remained captain of Sri Lankan cricket team since World Cup 99 and the job of captaincy was taken away from him after Sri Lankas poor display in the World Cup 99. After that he was also dropped from the Sri Lankan squad repeatedly and was mostly picked for test series alongwith Arvinda de Silva. His performance in the last series of his career was good enough to say that at the end of his career, he was not a burden for his team rather he played with honour till the very end of his career.
Another honour for Arjuna was that he is the only player in the history of cricket who has played in the first and hundredth test match of the nation.
During his career, Arjuna played 93 tests, 155 innings and he remained unbeaten for 12 times. He scored over 5000 runs (5105 to be precise), with an average of 35.69 which featured four 100's and 38 fifties. His highest score was 135 and he took 47 catches during his career. He also took 16 wickets at an average 65.
His ODI career is also as good as his test career is. He played 269 matches and he came on the pitch for batting 255 times. He remained unbeaten on 47 occasions and scored 7454 runs at an average of 35.83. His highest is 131* and he scored 4 hundreds and 49 fifties during his ODI career. He also took 79 wickets with best of 4 for 14 in ODI cricket.
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