Kumar Sangakkara: The greatest hero of our time

He is a professional Sri Lankan National Cricketer who is wildly regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of all time and a legendary star in the history of the game. He is also a record-breaking wicket-keeper. He is more than the greatest cricketer our country has ever produced.

Kumar Sangakkara, an elegant stroke player and a reliable keeper was the cornerstone of Sri Lankan cricket for close to 15 years. He is one of cricket’s most endearing personalities both on and off the field. He is a good player of both fast and spin bowling and is known to revel in arduous situations. He has amazing levels of concentration and is known to score big.

Sanga as he is fondly known by his fans is an exceptional gentleman par excellence shining at the apex of his glory. He is an epitome of humble personality whose contribution to cricket has helped to build a highly reputable image in Sri Lanka.

His Childhood and Education–

Kumar Chokshanada Sangakkara, was born on 27 October 1977 in Matale, Sri Lanka. He grew up in Kandy and he’s the youngest one in his family. His father was an eminent lawyer and also a keen sportsman named Kshema. Mr. Kshema a very well respected person of the local community and his deep love of law, literature, philosophy, and art was picked by his children. Sangakkara’s family has a strong educational background. His sister Thushari holds a degree at the University of Peradeniya and his elder brother Vemendra holds a degree at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His other sister Saranga, having a fashion degree, was a national tennis champion and she played tennis for the Brown University in the United States.

Sangakkara was a Trinitian who began to explore his talents in cricket in all age groups, badminton, tennis and swimming during his young days. He also learned to play the violin. He explored a broad range of subjects and also hobbies in his school era. Reading is one of his hobbies and he still enjoys the reading as his favorite author is Oscar Wilde. In school, his favorite subjects were English Literature and Greek and Roman Civilization (GRC) but he always showed a great interest in Law. He followed his father’s footsteps and he had enrolled to complete a Bachelor of Law at the University of Colombo, but due to hectic schedule of his tours he left less time for his studies and it was affected on his personal studies, and he could not complete his degree. He still wants to complete his degree of law after his retirement as a professional cricketer.

This future super star was fated to sharpen his skills in school cricket winning the most prestigious Trinity Lion Award and RYDE award in 1996 at the age of 19.

His Personal Life-

Sangakkara is married to his longtime partner, Yehali in May 2003 with whom he has twin children, a son called Kavith Kshema Peiris Sangakkara and daughter’s name is Swyree Kaavya Peiris Sangakkara.

His Domestic Cricket Career–

He has played cricket from the very early age of 7 years, but he was playing cricket seriously when he was around 12 years old, at that time he confidently secured a place for him in the Trinity College under 13 team. He was the senior prefect of Trinity College in 1996, he showed his talents at school in both cricket and Tennis as well, and he was in the list of good students and good players, and his school’s principal Mr. Leonard De Alwis advised his mother to encourage him to pursue cricket.

He is an all-around sportsman, cricket is his favorite sports to play but with cricket, he likes to play Tennis and Golf. At an early age as a child he played and showed his outstanding performances at table tennis, tennis, and a good swimmer. At one stage he represented Sri Lanka Schools at Tennis and he could continue tennis as a professional career but at the age of 17 he choose cricket instead of tennis and gave full focus on cricket, although it was the hardest decision for him to choose one field as career, in the end, he chose cricket and enjoyed this field more because of team spirit and fun. At school stage, he was a prodigiously talented sportsman, although he did not gain a high profile in the school cricket circuit and he also did not play cricket for the youth teams of Sri Lanka.

He played his domestic career for the Nondescripts in Sri Lanka, in the Country Championships. He played English country cricket in 2007 with Warwickshire. In the year of 2010, he was confirmed to represent Lancashire in the Country Championship 2010.However, he never played for the Lancashire as he was unavailable due to international commitments. A terrorist attack on 3rd March 2009 at the Sri Lankan cricket team caused to injure many players, including Kumar Sangakkara.

As a youngster, Sangakkara was gifted with exemplary temperament and was highly rated for his elegant batting. During the last 15 years Sanga has experienced a highly remarkable contribution of his expertise in cricket with team spirit as the captain, wicket-keeper and stylish batsman of the National Team. His attempt to bring Sri Lanka Cricket to the world of sports has commendably come to a reality.

His International Career-

At the age of 21, national selectors of the cricket, a year later picked him for the team of Sri Lanka ‘A’ in 1998-99 to the tour of South Africa. In this tour he performed well, he could manage to gain a place in the team for the three-match home series in May 2000 against Zimbabwe. This match series against Zimbabwe, turned out to be a breakthrough tour for him as he cracked an outstanding 156 in a limited over series with not out status. This gallant century was a brilliant display of his batting competence that made him selected to the national team. In this innings in which one 6 that was smashed the window of the dressing room was observed by the National coach Dav Whatmore, it paved the way for Sangakkara’s inclusion in the One Day Internationals squad in July 2000 for the Singer Triangular Series with South Africa and Pakistan.

Sanga played his debut for the Sri Lanka National Test Team in 2000 against South Africa and in the same year played in the limited over matches against Pakistan. In 2006, he displayed his finest talented skills in his first T20 matches against England. He showed maturity in his performance beyond his years.

In the Singer Series the victory of Sri Lanka, boosted their confidence ahead to play with South Africa for three-match Test Series. Due to well performances in one-day internationals, international cricket selectors encouraged to take the plunge with Sangakkara in test match series too. The decision of selectors to select him was not wrong, he proved their decision by his good performances. His performances were more modest and finest.

He continues to improve his talents and bring perfection in his every game, during 5 match ODI series he performed very well. In several dimensions, he is the batsman who is unquestionably world class cricketer. With the batting and bowling, he was also a wicketkeeper for a fair time period and good enough to grip any situations and turned the direction of the game into his team’s favor.

Mother Sri Lanka prides herself on Sanga’s outstanding records in International Cricket. He is the only cricketer to have reached the milestone to score 8,000, 9,000, 11,000 and 12,000 runs in Test Cricket, the fastest in history.

In 2006, Sanga and Mahela Jayawardena created history of a 624 run partnership against South Africa, an unbroken world record of highest partnership for any wicket in test matches breaking the previous partnership of 576 runs made by Sanath Jayasuriya and Roshan Mahanama in 1997. He is the only Sri Lankan cricketer who scored over 12,000 runs in test cricket. He scored 52 half centuries in addition to 38 centuries and disported a superb wicket keeping with 202 dismissals. Sanga scored 11 double centuries to his credit, second only to Don Bradman who scored 12 double centuries in his career.

In limited over matches Sanga has played 404 ODIs with a total score of 14,234 runs winning the second place next to Sachin Tendulkar who leads with 18,426 runs in 463 matches. Sanga has become the best wicket keeper with the world record of 506 dismissals together with 99 stumps. He captained 45 ODIs from 2009 to 2011 with 27 victories. Sanga has displayed his skills in 56 T20 matches with 1382 runs and captained from 2009 to 2010 with 13 victories.