Mathews and Lasith Malinga hold the record for the highest ninth wicket partnership in ODI cricket.

[4][5][6] Mathews made his List A debut for Sri Lanka Under-23 against New Zealand A at Police Park Ground, Colombo in September 2005.

The wedding reception was held on 18 July 2013 at Cinnamon Grand Hotel with the presence of former president Mahinda Rajapakse.

[19] Mathews began his international career in late 2008 with ambitions of becoming a genuine allrounder, but has since given primacy to his batting (to diminish his workload and avoid injuries), and effectively plays as a specialist batter in the Test side.

He scored his maiden half-century in the third Test of the series, played at Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo.

[21] Mathews has an average record in Tests in countries such as Australia, South Africa and India, but up to now he has had limited opportunities to improve on it.

In this match, Mathews along with Malinga, recorded the highest ninth-wicket partnership in ODI history by scoring 132 runs for the ninth wicket.

He hit four boundaries and ten huge sixes but finally ended up on the losing side with a century made by Indian skipper Virat Kohli.

[31] The year 2014 was the limelight of Mathew's captaincy, where Sri Lanka won many bilateral ODI series and also the 2014 Asia Cup.

[35] On 11 March 2015, during the last pool A match in 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup, against Scotland, Mathews scored the fastest fifty by a Sri Lankan in World Cups, and third fastest ODI fifty by a Sri Lankan after Sanath Jayasuriya and Kusal Perera.

However, his century was in vain due to the third double hundred of Rohit Sharma in the earlier innings and Sri Lanka was on a chase of a mammoth total of 392.

However, with many defeats in all formats in 2017, a new coach Chandika Hathurusinghe and a new selection committee handed over the limited-overs captaincy to Mathews for the second time.

Mathews along with Kusal Mendis batted all over the fourth day, which was the fifth time that the Sri Lankan pair had done that in Test history.

[60][61] After consecutive failures of 0,0, 9 with the bat in World Cup, Mathews regained his form during the pool match against England.

[73] Sri Lanka was able to draw the second Test due to second innings unbeaten century by Kusal Mendis and sealed the series 1–0.

[78] With three legends (Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Dilshan) retiring from international cricket, the team had a rough time in many bilateral series in all formats.

Though he was injured several times in his captaincy career and replaced by Upul Tharanga in many winning notes, reporters suggested that Mathews would not captain until 2019 Cricket World Cup.

Sri Lanka coach Chandika Hathurusinghe stated that Mathews has been involved in more than 64 run-outs in the past two years, more than the second worst.

[82] Hathurusingha and the selectors contended that Mathews lacked the "cricket fitness" to field for 50 overs, then run between the wickets effectively.

[85] On 7 July 2021, Mathews announced that he is considering to retire from across all formats of international cricket as he had not signed the tour contract with SLC for the limited overs series against India and he complained of the unethical treatment by the management regarding the senior players in the team.

[89][90][91] On 6 November 2023, during Sri Lanka's World Cup match against Bangladesh, during the 25th over of the Sri Lankan batting innings, Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan appealed to the umpire Marais Erasmus, indicating that Mathews had arrived late to the crease since the fall of the last wicket of previous batter Sadeera Samarawickrama.

[92][93][94] The appeal caused confusion in the field for some time with Mathews and Shakib caught in heated exchange over the decision.

[95] Mathews tried to convince both Shakib Al Hasan and the on-field umpires that he had arrived to the crease within the time limit but wasn't ready to face the bowler because of the breaking of his helmet strap, in what he described as an "equipment malfunction."

[96] Shakib refused to withdraw the appeal and Mathews showed his dissent towards the decision of the on-field umpires Richard Illingworth and Marais Erasmus.

Meanwhile, after the first ODI in the series, he left the tour of West Indies immediately for personal reasons citing his daughter's critical health condition.

[109] In the Australian Test series in July 2022, Sri Lanka suffered a huge defeat, where the match ended in three days.

[115] On 24th Oct 2023 In a significant development for Sri Lanka's World Cup campaign, Mathews was drafted into the squad for the injured Matheesha Pathirana.

[122] In the first Test against New Zealand, Mathews scored a fifty in the second innings and helped Sri Lanka to win the game by 63 runs.

In July 2021, he announced that he was interested in taking major responsibility for finding donors for a social welfare project titled "Little Hearts", which is also a national fundraising project being initiated in order to build a Cardiac and Critical Care Complex at the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children in Colombo.

[125][126] He was inspired to get involved with the Little Hearts fundraiser after acknowledging the way the doctors and nurses had treated his daughter who was admitted to LRH hospital.