An open letter to Kumar Sangakkara from a Cricket Fan

Dear ‘Sanga’,

Cricket has completed a chapter with your retirement from the international formats of the game. Undoubtedly, you were a baton, not only to the Sri Lankan batting but also to the batting sphere of modern-day Cricket. It is a rather sad note that we won’t witness the anchoring innings by the orthodox yet aggressive left-handed batsman of Sri Lanka. You did provide with a bunch of crisps and spices to the Cricket fans and the entire Cricketing world owes a big salute to you.

When it comes to statistics, you can be compared to a mountain! With a stunning record of 12350 test runs in 133 tests, coupled with 14324 runs in 404 ODIs, you do will remain as one of the epitomised batsmen in international Cricket. You made your international debut in July, 2000 and amplified the strengths of Sri Lankan batting. At that time, it was quite out of the box to expect wicket keepers to win matches with the bat. The name Kumar Sangakkara made the aforesaid statement a joke, literally. You have been Sri Lanka’s baton with the bat in the most crucial situations. In the 2007 World Cup, you had vital contributions for the team but you were not that lucky to share the last laugh as Sri Lanka were beaten at the Final.

Also, apart from being a great batsman yourself, you did aid and complement other batsmen to produce the best out of them. In fact, you do share some of the record-breaking partnerships with Mahela Jayawardene. The total runs contributed in the partnership between you two stands to be the highest by any pair in the history of international Cricket. You were a brilliant team man to say the least. On a similar note, Cricket being a gentleman’s game and undoubtedly you were the subtle gentleman in the game. You were imbibed with the exact proportions of team spirit. On a negligible amount of occasions we witnessed you losing your temper.

You led the Sri Lankan team to a galore of triumphant occasions. In the World Cup of 2011, you captained the Lankan army to a glamorous run. Unfortunately, for yet another time, you missed the gold by inches. Sri Lanka was defeated by India to clinch the title. Still after losing the World Cup you retained your calm and walked off the field with a mere smile when the entire Indian team went berserk.

You were the tragic hero for Sri Lanka on a number of occasions. Out of your sheer dedication, you deserved a world title and justice was served crisp in the ICC World T20, 2014. Sri Lanka, after being runners-up for consecutive occasions on a number of World Championships, finally tasted success. They managed to beat India in the final of 2014 World T20 Final. And needless to mention, Kumar Sangakkara, with his glamorous brilliance with the bat, guided the team to a safe victory in the final.

The World Cup campaign of 2015 is something not much cherishable from the point of view of a Sri Lankan fan. But you did show your class with the coloured jerseys in the conclusive phase of your ODI career. You set the record for striking four back to back centuries in World Cup tournament. You raised the bars of batting standards in ODI cricket. Sri Lanka was eliminated right in the quarter finals of the tournament. Still one needs to bow such exceptional performances from you in the tournament and that too on a consistent basis.

Needless to mention, whenever Sri Lankan batting went through a collapse, there was always one man who shouldered the entire batting line up to a zone of comfort. Kumar Sangakkara stood as one of the splendid pillars of the Sri Lankan cricket. With your retirement, a huge void has been created in the Sri Lankan team. Something which will take a good amount of time to recover from.

Yours sincerely,

A Cricket Fan