Kumar Sangakkara picks Rahul Dravid and Brian Lara ahead of Sachin Tendulkar

Sri Lankan batting mainstay for over a decade and a half, Kumar Sangakkara, went ahead with Rahul ‘The Wall’ Dravid and West Indian great Brian Lara over batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar in his all-time XI. He instead placed The Punter, Ricky Ponting at the number four position.

Sanga made some interesting choices in his playing XI as he went ahead with Matthew Hayden and Rahul Dravid at the opening slot followed by the Trinidadian wizard at the all-important number three position.

Kumar Sangakkara had an intriguing dilemma between Aravinda de Silva and Mahela Jayawardena for the number 5 slot in the lineup. Sanga went ahead with De Silva in the end and tagged him as the greatest batsmen produced by the island nation.

In the all-rounder spot, Sangakkara named Jacques Kallis at the number six position. The two spinners in his All Time XI would be Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan. While naming the two pacers in his team, he had no doubt about naming one but was in a slight pickle when asked about the number 11 in his side.

He first named Wasim Akram and then had to choose between Chaminda Vaas and Glenn McGrath. At the end of the day, it was his compatriot Vaas who got the edge ahead of McGrath. So, in totality, there were three Lankans in the side by the names of Aravinda de Silva, Muralitharan and Vaas.

Kumar Sangakkara played his last first-class game today to put an to his FC career. He walks away from this form of cricket with as many as 20,911 runs under his belt. He would now only play franchise league cricket in the number of leagues he has signed for namely Hobart Hurricanes, Quetta Gladiators and Jamaica Tallawahs.

Here’s the video of Sanga’s all-time XI