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Sanga, The Wordsmith Who Made His Bat Talk

Kumar Sangakkara, known for being well spoken and his fashion sense in bespoke tailoring apart from his achievements in cricket, turns 48 years today!

The Sidelines

• 3 min read
Sanga, The Wordsmith Who Made His Bat Talk

He started off his career as a very average batter chosen just for his wicketkeeping, and finished his career as the second highest run scorer in International Cricket with only Virat Kohli closing in the 28,000 run mark and recently succeeded him in ODIs. Today we celebrate the 48th birthday of none other than Kumar Sangakkara, who's also turning out to be a Men's Fashion icon in the present!

The Beginning of an Average Cricketer

Following Sri Lanka's horror run in the 1999 World Cup, Brendon Kuruppu who was a selector at the time and as a former Wicketkeeper himself, told his fellow selectors there is a young boy from Kandy who could keep wickets. He was not a standout performer like his would be teammates as a schoolboy, but Kuruppu's decision to include him in the team paid off, but not instantly.

Sanga seated second from the left with his university team in 2003

Sanga wanted to be a Lawyer like his father but had a delayed enrollment to the University of Colombo Law Faculty. He did play for the Sri Lanka U19 team and captained Trinity College in Cricket, winning the Ryde Medal as well but going down the academic path took a slightly different turn after this brief encounter with Brendon Kuruppu who saw potential in him. This part of the story would be best read in this piece by Rex Clementine, on 'the kid who came to colombo to study law.'

Second to some of the greatest names

Although he didn't quite live his dream to become a lawyer, he ended up as a cricketer who scored only one less Test Double Century than Don Bradman and second to Sachin Tendulkar for the most runs scored in international cricket, 28,016 to be exact. He is also second to M.S. Dhoni in the number of stumpings!

With 63 hundreds in Tests and ODIs combined, his success in Test Cricket as a batter was also influenced by handing over his wicket-keeping duties to Prasanna Jayawardene. There are far too many records to capture his entire career, but it is impossible for someone to think a cricketer in his early days would go onto achieve such and someone who was even labelled "Gandassara" after the famous run out of Aravinda De Silva.

A Speaker and Men's Fashion Icon!

He's the last person you'd want to bat when he's the wicketkeeper, always getting under the skin of the opponent with his way of words, often regarded as a different person as compared to how he is off the field. Nevertheless, he's a brilliant orator and was the youngest ever and only active cricketer when he delivered the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture in 2011 (part 1 below).

He further went on to become the first Non British Citizen to be appointed as the President of the MCC, in addition to being a regular commentator with Sky Sports and Director of Cricket at the Rajasthan Royals. Additionally, he has even recieved very high praise from "The Fashion Guy" Derek Guy at this year's Wimbledon, which speaks very highly of his sense of fashion!

Sanga's achievements was nothing but the result of hard work, therefore a great example of how much one can achieve if they are committed to improving one's self. Here's to wishing Sanga on his 48th birthday today!