Farewell to Kumar Sangakkara
One of the finest cricketers of all time, and a great statesman for the game
Greatness is thrust on cricketers far too readily (and annoyingly) these days. A couple of big knocks, a few fine bowling performances, one fantastic series, and the anointment is made in unseemly knee-jerk fashion. As has often been the case, an epithet bestowed in haste is also discovered to be ill-advised just as quickly.
In sport as in life, time, in fact, is the most crucial factor in rating merit and achievement. If he is to be described as great, a player must be assessed over at least a longish period, if not an entire career, when the body of work is complete. That’s when the spikes, the troughs, frailties and failings, mettle and character get sharper definition.
In this context, and looked at from every angle, there will be few (if any) in disagreement that Kumar Sangakkara, who signs off from the sport after the second Test against India, starting 20 August, has been a truly great cricketer.
His former colleague and most famous ally in run-scoring for more than a decade, Mahela Jayawardene, believes Sangakkara is the best Sri Lanka have ever had. “Nobody has contributed more to the country’s cause,’’ Jayawardene said ahead of the series.
There might be some who argue that Jayawardene himself was better. Some may also bring the names of Roy Dias, Duleep Mendis, Michael Tissera, Arjuna Ranatunga, Aravinda de Silva and Muttiah Muralitharan into play. In my opinion, this reflects more the richness of Sri Lankan cricket rather than any serious dispute over where Sangakkara stands.
On statistics alone, Sangakkara is a runaway winner. Before the first Test (currently under way at Galle), he had scored 12,305 Test runs, which puts him fifth in the list of run-makers, behind Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis and Rahul Dravid.
The Sri Lankan maestro, however, tops these four players where batting average is concerned. At 58.04 runs per innings, he is the ninth highest in the history of the game, but if he maintains his current form, Sangakkara could well finish in the top five in this aspect too.
To supplement the Test statistics, he has also scored 14,234 runs at 41.98 in One Day Internationals (ODIs). Add to this 202 catches/stumpings in Tests and 501 in ODIs and Sangakkara’s contribution acquires a truly staggering dimension.
But while these wondrous statistics define Sangakkara’s brilliance, they are but one part of his cricketing persona. Greatness, as the British historian Philip Guedalla tells us, is often a courteous synonym for success, nothing more.
Sangakkara’s importance to the sport goes beyond just what he did on the field of play. It is the influence he had on his country; indeed, on every country where cricket is played. Implicit in this is the thoughts and the motivation that impelled his actions and success, the larger ends he sought from playing sport.
The MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture he gave in the UK in 2011 is superb testimony to what Sangakkara stands for, and I’ve picked out a couple of short extracts to highlight this. Somewhere at the beginning, he confronts the problems affecting the game:
“I strongly believe that we have reached a critical juncture in the game’s history and that unless we better sustain Test cricket, embrace technology enthusiastically, protect the game’s global governance from narrow self-interest, and more aggressively root out corruption, then cricket will face an uncertain future...’’
He concludes on a stirring crescendo: “…(I will) …play the game hard and fair and be a voice with which Sri Lanka can speak proudly and positively to the world. My loyalty will be to the ordinary Sri Lankan fan, their 20 million hearts beating collectively as one to our island rhythm and filled with an undying and ever-loyal love for this, our game.
“Fans of different races, castes, ethnicities and religions who together celebrate their diversity by uniting for a common national cause. They are my foundation, they are my family. I will play my cricket for them. Their spirit is the true spirit of cricket. With me are all my people. I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan.’’
It’s a speech magnificent in its sweep: rich in prose and vision, using cricket as a metaphor to address issues of race, religion, national identity and unity, and international amity. Rivalled perhaps only by Dravid’s Bradman Oration, delivered the same year in Australia. It reflects the thinking not just of a great player but a statesman.
I dare say cricket needs one badly now.
Ayaz Memon is a senior columnist who writes on sports and other matters.
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