C365 Player of the Week: Kumar Sangakkara

Cricket365
August 12, 2014

Kumar Sangakkara is the gift that keeps on giving, and whether you consider him to be a 'flat track bully' that only makes runs in Sri Lanka (you'd be wrong, look at what he did in England) or a batting master, he's always entertaining.

To mark our return to this little feature, Sangakkara did us a favour by scoring a double century against Pakistan in Galle this week, helping his side to victory. He batted for nearly 12 hours on a distinctly 'not flat' track.

Sanga's 221 came off 425 deliveries and featured 24 fours, but was a difficult knock on a pitch that, as South Africa discovered in the series prior, spun more and more as the game progressed, as most decks in Asia do.

His innings saw Sri Lanka able to declare, rather funkily we must say, on 533 for nine. Rangana Herath (Honourable Mention!) then proceeded to take six wickets to bowl Pakistan out for 180. Thus, Sri Lanka needed only 99 to win, but had to race against the weather to get them.

Sangakkara's batting is becoming more and more precious, given his BFF Mahela Jayawardene's imminent retirement. When they bat together, angels weep, and it was an emotional moment when Mahela came out to open the batting for the first time, in his last match in Galle.

Aside from Sanga, we must also give credit to England paceman Stuart Broad, who will wear a face mask in the next Test against India. Forget about the six wickets he took in the first innings in Manchester, a Hannibal mask is more cause for celebration.

And finally, South Africa spinner Dane Piedt took eight wickets in the one-off Test against Zimbabwe in Harare, the best figures by a Proteas spinner on Test dayboo. Let's not get all 'But it was against Zim…' about it, ok?

<b>Lindsay du Plessis</b>