Cricket was fortunate enough to have been graced by a moniker called Kumara Sangakkara. One of the most chivalrous cricketers to have donned on the jersey of Sri Lanka, Sanga slew it with the bat and also the gloves behind the stumps.
Sangakkara’s towering presence in the Sri Lankan side ensured the fact that the Lankans got themselves into two World Cup finals that saw them ending as runners-up in 2007 and 2011.
When he decided to pull the plug on his career, the Sri Lankan maestro has established himself as the second-highest run-scorer in the shorter format of the game while being sixth in the longest format of the sport.
A career that spanned 15 long years in the history of the sport helped him to amass 28,016 runs in international cricket. He was such a gracious stroke player that even the opposition crowds loved to savour his batting in any format of the sport.
The bowler who proved to be a nightmare for Sangakkara
However, they say that everyone in the world has a certain Achilles’ heel and for Sanga, it proved to be a reckoning moniker from India. In a video that was posted by ICC to celebrate the Hall of Famer, Anil Kumble, the former Sri Lanka wicket-keeper expressed his view about Jumbo.
He was heard citing, “Kumble has given me a few sleepless nights as a batsman. He was not your orthodox leg-spinner. This big, tall gangly bowler running in and bowling with very high arm action. Bowling fast, bowling straight and accurately. It was not at all easy to get him away for runs. A lot of bounce… he had great pace on the ball and if there was any rough on a length, the batsman had very little chance of getting away. Lovely guy, very intense cricketer but an absolute champion for India and world cricket.”
Kumble claimed 619 Test wickets and 337 ODI wickets that made him one of the most fearsome leg-spinners across the world.
