Saga of Sanga made him a legend

by Hafiz Marikar

Proud cricketing son of the hills Kumar Chokshanada Sangakkara who is widely regarded as one of the greatest left hand batsmen of his era, will say good bye to Sri Lanka cricket and hang up his Lion-emblem shirt in a few days time and although much has been said about the legendary batsman, very little has been highlighted of his growing up days. As of April 2015, he is the second highest run-scorer in ODI matches and the fifth highest run getter in Test matches.

He retired from ODIs on March 18, 2015 after facing South Africa during the quarter final stage of the World Cup and will finish his Test career after the second Test against India starting on August 20.

Sanga, as he is fondly called, was born to Kumari Surangana and Swarnakumara Sangakkara on October 27, 1977 in Matale. Later his parents settled in Kandy where he grew up and received his primary and secondary education at Trinity College, Kandy.

He has two sisters, Thushari and Saranga, and an elder brother Vemindra, all who have had national level achievements. Sangakkara too started playing a number of sports - badminton, tennis, swimming, table tennis and cricket at junior school and was able to win national colours in badminton and tennis at a young age. But it was the then principal of Trinity College Col. Leonard de Alwis, who saw the potential in the aspiring Sangakkara, and advised his mother to encourage him to concentrate more on cricket.

He represented his school's under-13 cricket team under coach Upananda Jayasundera and then it was Berty Wijesinghe who coached Sangakkara in the under-15, under-17 and first XI squads that eventually put him on the path to stardom.

Sangakkara was awarded the Trinity Lion, the most prestigious and exalted award a Trinity sportsman can acquire for his exceptional batting and wicket-keeping skills in the 1996 season. In that same year in the big match the late ME Marikar predicted that a future Sri Lanka cap was in the making.

Sangakkara was 19 years when he was selected to play for the Sri Lanka A team on a tour of South Africa in 1998-99. But it was not until an unbeaten knock of 156 against Zimbabwe A at a home one-day match that Sangakkara was able to secure a place in the Sri Lanka senior team in 1999. Before that Sangakkara led Trinity College in 1966 and in the 81st big match battle against St. Anthony's College the game ended in a draw after which the one-day clash went in favor of the Antonians led by Tharaka Gunaratne.

Sangakkara's team was made up of players like Indika Gunawardena, (vice captain), Narendra Ekanayake, Vinjaya Jayasinghe, Rodney Raffayal, Sudhanga Fernando, Suranga Gamage, Suranga Moratota, A. Samarakoon, Dasun Weeraratne, Kaushalya Weeraratne, Rumesh Karunakaran, Angus Jayasena, Sanjeewa Damunupola, Merza Jumar and Ishan Gammanpila. Few outsiders knew that Sangakkara was a Senior Prefect of the school and did his A/Ls in arts. Sangakkara was also awarded the highest overall award a Trinitian can claim, the Ryde Gold Medal, for the best all-round student.

Following his father's footsteps, he took up Law and entered the Law Faculty of the University of Colombo but was unable to finish his degree due to a workload of cricket.

He made Sri Lanka blush when he delivered the 2011 MCC Spirit of Cricket Colin Cowdrey Lecture which gained worldwide attention. It was a masterpiece that also did not go down too well with Sri Lankan officials whom he accused of shady behind-the-scene workings.

Sangakkara eventually became the youngest and the first active international player to deliver that lecture which was widely praised by the cricketing community in Sri Lanka.

He was named Wisden's Leading Cricketer in 2011 and 2015 and is one of only two players to have won the award twice along with Indian opener Virender Sehwag who won the prize in 2008 and 2009.