Thank You Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara: A tribute to the legends

Thank You Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara: A tribute to the legends: With Sri Lanka losing to South Africa in the first QF of the 2015 World Cup also ended the limited overs careers of 2 of the most recognisable players in the planet. Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene both bid goodbyes to the Sri Lankan and other crowd who had come to support their teams and cricket after losing to South Africa by 9 wickets.

Both Sangakkara and Jayawardene had previously retired from the T20Is after winning the World Cup in 2014 in Bangladesh. Jayawardene retired from Test cricket last year and announced that he will retire from ODIs after the World Cup. Sangakkara also decided to retire from ODIs after the 2015 World Cup and will play the test format till August 2015.

The partnership of Jayawardene – Sangakkara has made many records. The highest partnership of 624 runs in Test cricket against South Africa and a total of 13368 run in 293 innings in international cricket with 36 century partnership and 62 fifties partnerships to their names.

Jayawardene made his international debut against India in 1997 in a Test while Sangakkara debuted against Pakistan in 2000 in an ODI. Jayawardene was included in the team as a child prodigy at the age of 20 to replace another legend in Roshan Mahanama while Sangakkara came in as an option of Romesh Kaluwitharana. Jayawardene was a brilliant right handed batsman with ample amount of time to hit every ball with minimum effort, smooth and silky in executing the shots, while Sangakkara is a left handed batsman and as delightful to watch as every left handed batsman in the world. Gradually both of them became one of the main pillars of Sri Lankan cricket along with Tillakaratne Dilshan and Muralitharan after decline of Sanath Jayasuriya and retirement of Aravinda de Silva in 2003.

Both Jayawardene and Sangakkara then became the senior partners in Sri Lanka’s rebuilding process and welcoming new players in to the fold and take Sri Lanka forward. Both of them also became captains for a period of time, with Jayawardene leading Sri Lanka into the 2007 World Cup finals and Sangakkara leading Sri Lanka into the 2011 World Cup finals. Though none of them could win the coveted trophy, they did manage to retire as World Champions winning the 2014 World T20.

Both of them were classically trained batsmen with perfect techniques, but tweaked those techniques to bring success for themselves in the slam bang world of T20 cricket as well. Both of them played in IPL and captained teams in various other leagues in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Both of them made making runs even in T20s easier despite playing proper cricket.

Sangakkara scored 14234 runs in 404 ODI matches with 25 centuries, while Jayawardene scored 12650 runs in 448 ODI matches with 19 hundreds, 11814 runs in 149 Test matches with 34 hundreds and 1493 runs in 55 T20Is with 1 century.

Kumar Sangakkara (2000-2015)

Mahela Jayawardene (1997-2015)

*stats updated till 18 March 2015.

Both have staggering numbers in their records over almost 15 years of playing cricket together. Now when one of them has bid goodbye to cricket forever and one will eventually say good bye, Sri Lanka will have to find some player with equal talents and abilities to fill their humongous shoes and void that they are leaving. Sri Lanka will have to find some other players to fall back on as there will be no more Kumar Sangakkara at no.3 and Mahela Jayawardene at no.4 to bail them out of troubles and take them to big totals, or chase big totals on their own. Sri Lanka only benefited from their camaraderie because despite being big stars, they didn’t have any rivalry between them. If one made runs, the other provided support and vice-versa. They would have liked to retire from cricket as 2015 World Cup champions but as fate had it, both of them still say goodbye with their heads held high and tears in their eyes, embracing each other and soaking in the applause the fans had for them.

Once again we can only thank them for providing us with entertainment over the years with their sublime knocks, highlight reel moments and pure display of gentleman like behaviour on the field and also for showing that friendships can last longer than anything in cricket.

Highlights of their careers and records held by Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara:

# Highest partnership in Test cricket for any wicket, 624 vs South Africa SSC (Colombo) 2006.

# Kumar Sangakkara is only the second man to score a 300 and 100 in the same match against Bangladesh when he scored 319 and 105 in 2014.

# Jayawardene has 34 Test centuries and Sangakkara has 38 centuries.

# Sangakkara also has 11 scores of 200 of more in Test cricket, just 1 behind the record of Sir Don Bradman, who has 12.

# Jayawardene and Sangakkara have added a total of 13368 run in 293 innings in international cricket with 36 hundred partnership and 62 fifty partnerships to their names, another world record.

# Jayawardene holds the record for highest score by a Sri Lankan in Test cricket with his 374 against South Africa.

# Jayawardene is the only fielder to take more than 200 catches in ODIs.

# Sangakkar and Jayawardene have scored 6554 partnerships runs in Tests and 5992 runs in ODIs. They are the second highest in both formats

# Kumar Sangakkara is the only player to score centuries in four consecutive innings in ODIs.

# Kumar Sangakkara has scored 5 centuries in WCs, only Sachin has scored more (6). Ponting also scored 5 WC 100s.

Stats Source: @SeerviBharath