wicket stand for Sri Lanka in ODI history (51). During the final of the 2000–01 Sharjah Champions Trophy against India in 2000 at Sharjah, Arnold helped Sanath Jayasuriya to post his highest individual score of 189. Sanath and Arnold had a good partnership until Sanath stumped after a brilliant 189. Russel provided good support scoring unbeaten 52 off 62 balls in the match. Sri Lanka eventually won the final by a big margin of 245 runs. He was part of the Sri Lankan team captained by Sanath Jayasuriya which won the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy jointly with India. Arnold's failure in the 2003 Cricket World Cup saw him sidelined for many months as selectors opted to groom the youngsters into the side. However, he fought his way back into the side with a string of good scores in domestic cricket for his club, Nondescripts. A calm and cool player in a crisis situation, Arnold has dragged Sri Lanka out of many sticky situations. He is highly valued for his gritty qualities and is considered an unselfish team man. He is considered an ideal No. 6; he is a Methodist Christian of Tamil descent. Arnold has been nicknamed "Rusty" by Roshan Mahanama and Pramodya Wickramasinghe, due to it being a very common nickname for the name Russel, and for his batting style as tough and durable, though not really pretty. His late cut shot is admired by many critics at that time where he used the shot so often to spin bowling. Arnold made his T20I debut against England on 15 June 2006, which was incidentally Sri Lanka's first-ever T20I match. It was also his only T20I match in his career and Sri Lanka won the match by two runs. Retirement During April 2007 he announced, through team manager Michael Tissera, that he intended to retire from international cricket after the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup final, which came as a shock to Sri Lankan cricket. He cited the pressure of too much travel as his reason. After retirement, he played A-grade cricket in Sydney for Hornsby District Cricket Club and has also played numerous games for the Melbourne Super Kings in Melbourne. He also played for Chennai Superstars in the Indian Cricket League. He also coached at Barker College, a prestigious private school in Sydney's north. He also was assistant coach to Deccan Chargers in the IPL before the team