Underappreciated, selfless, legend: Cricket will be poorer without Kumar San

Author Topic: Underappreciated, selfless, legend: Cricket will be poorer without Kumar San  (Read 661 times)

Offline Shahriar Mohammad Kamal

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It wasn't supposed to end like this

but that didn’t stop the crowd at P

Sara Oval from getting to their feet

and applauding a champion who walked

into the sunset one last time. There

were tears and some were inconsolable

as Kumar Sangakkara trudged back to

the pavilion after scoring 18.

That's the kind of legacy Sangakkara

has left behind in Sri Lankan and

world cricket.

The ending wasn’t as sad as that

painful 96-ball 45 in World Cup at the

Sydney Cricket Ground but he deserved

a better one.

Sangakkara wasn't a child prodigy but

as he left the P Sara Oval, he had

28,016 international runs to his name

- trailing only Sachin Tendulkar in

terms of the most international runs

scored in the history of the game. He

is also the only batsman to feature in

the top 10 in terms of runs, average

and centuries in Test cricket.

Looking at these stats one may imagine

that Sangakkara got off to a

blistering start. But that isn't the

case. In his first year in Test

cricket, he averaged 33.31 without a

single century. His ODI start was even

slower. In the first three years

(2000-2003), he averaged just 28.55

with a strike rate of 69.39 and just

two hundreds. That he finished with

mind-boggling statistics is a

testament to the hard work he has put

in over the years.

He started off as an average player

but he wasn't afraid to make changes.

He was one of the most improved

players in international cricket.

He had a limited range of shots, but

as his career blossomed, he started

adapting to the needs of the game. He

added more and more shots to his

repertoire. When he started, he

scratched around for survival.

His innings were grinders, then there

was some fluency instilled and then

those were converted into match-

winning knocks. Thirties became

fifties, fifties became hundreds and

then hundreds became double hundreds.

From a strike-rate of 67.29 in ODIs in

his first year, he ended with a strike

rate of 78.86. He had mastered the art

of pacing the innings. From a fighter

to a master, Sangakkara defied logic

as he improved immensely with age.

Talk of Sangakkara and the first word

that comes to your mind is

consistency. During the India-Sri

Lanka encounters, every time

Sangakkara strode out to bat,

conversations among friends started

with, "Sanga aa gaya hai batting

karne, at least 50 to pakka hai."

(Sangakkara has come out to bat,

expect him to score at least 50).

These comments were tinged with

frustration, of course.

Over the span of his 15-year career,

2000, 2005 and 2008 are the only years

when Sanga did not average over 40 in

Tests. His average was over 50 in ten

of the years he played.

Since 2010, he averaged almost 53 in

ODIs.

His best year in international cricket

came in 2014 at the age of 36, when he

shattered record after record. He

scored 2,868 international runs,

breaking Ricky Ponting's mark for most

runs in a calendar year.

[Coll.]