Kumar Sangakkara Bids Adieu To First Class Cricket
Sep 28, 2017 at 12:32 PM
Former Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara who retired from international cricket in 2015 bid adieu to domestic cricket as well when he played his last innings for Surrey. Sangakkara made 35 not out in his last innings against Lancashire. Sangakkara who retired as a legend from the Sri Lankan national team has retired as a legend form county cricket as well. Sangakkara ended his first-class career with 20,911 runs.
Sangakkara is fifth on the all-time run scorer list as he has scored 12,400 runs in 134 runs at an average of 57.40. Sangakkara had a splendid county season this year. He scored 1,491 runs in 16 county championship innings at an average 106.50. His season consisted of eight glorious centuries. However, he will continue to play in the domestic T20 leagues around the world.
Sangakkara’s domestic career lasted two decades. Sangakkara finished only behind Sachin Tendulkar on the list of highest scorers in all the formats. Sanga scored 28,016 runs in his entire career. He is the leading run scorer for his country in Test matches. Mahela Jayawardene is the only other Sri Lankan batsman to go past 10,000 runs. He has also scored 100 hundreds in all formats of cricket.
In an interview, Sanga said that he would miss cricket “terribly”. He said:
“Sometimes you hold on a bit too long and I always think it’s better to let go a bit sooner than later, I’ll miss it terribly, without a doubt, but that’s a good thing. A lot of players walk away bitter and upset and regretting a lot of the things that might have been. I walk away with a few regrets, like anyone would, but I’m absolutely happy with the way I played the game and what I’ve achieved. The game goes on and that’s the beauty of any sport. It doesn’t matter who retires or who comes into play – the sport will be bigger than all of us.”