There is an international batsman that doesn’t get the credit that he deserves.
Kumar Sangakarra has just scored 3 Test centuries in 3 innings. His Test average as a whole is now a remarkable 57. If you look at matches where he was not expected to keep wicket he averages just a shade under 70 in 118 innings, only Bradman has a better average than that. He is one of only 11 players to have scored over 10,000 Test runs, and in that elite company he has the best career average. He has 33 Test centuries which puts him 7th all time and only Bradman and Lara have scored more double hundreds.
Despite all this brilliance when we discuss the great batsmen Kumar doesn’t get a mention. We are told he scored too many runs against the minnows. If you take away the runs Sangakkara has scored against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh he still has an average of just under 50 and the best part of 9000 runs. This would be a fine record that would draw fair comparison with all the best of his generation. This is without mentioning that a player can only face the opposition he is given. If a world class batsman was not to treat mediocre bowling with the disrespect that it deserves there would be plenty lining up to criticise his inability to plunder it. To criticise Sangakarra for the way that his country’s board has scheduled Tests is unfair in the extreme.
There are those that tell us his record is unfairly skewed by having played so many of his matches on Sri Lankan pitches flatter than a bottle of Coke on a roller coaster. At home Sangakarra averages 63.90, away from home he averages 49.97. To have such an excellent average overseas does not seem to highlight a preference for Galle roads. This may be the result of flat pitches, but it is just as likely to be the result of a familiarity with the conditions. Ricky Ponting, who is quite rightly included in the higher echelons of batting greats averaged 56.97 at home and 46.60 overseas. Perhaps we should discount something from Ponting’s claims to greatest for having got to bat on Adelaide Oval featherbeds.
Watching Sangakarra bat in any format is a joy. He is elegant and scores freely on both sides of the wicket. He does well against true quick bowling and is one of the great players of spin bowling. His extra cover drive is as every bit as elegant as Hashim Amla’s. His desire to score big hundreds is just as strong as Alastair Cook’s or Graeme Smith’s. Perhaps the one blot in his copy book is his relative struggles in England. Not aided by so many of his Test in the UK taking place early in the English season he has found the swinging ball a challenge. While this is a gap in his mighty CV, he is far from the only great player to have found one set of conditions hard going. Shane Warne struggled in India, but is still a great. Until his most recent tour of England Jacques Kallis had found English conditions his one real failing.
Why then do Kumar Sangakarra’s achievements get discounted when we are talking about the best of the best? It can’t be his record which is phenomenal. It can’t be that he only scores his runs against weak opponents, he doesn’t. It can’t be flat pitches at home, he has an amazing record overseas. It can’t be that he isn’t a joy to watch, few make batting look so effortless and artistic.
The time has come for us to give Kumar Chokshanada Sangakkara the credit he deserves.
