Sri Lankan cricket’s legend Kumar Sangakkara on Monday became the second Sri Lankan to score 19,000 runs in First-Class cricket. His First-Class cricket career has seen him play for Central Province, Colombo District Cricket Association, Durham, Kandurata, Marylebone Cricket Club, Nondescripts Cricket Club and Warwickshire. Sangakkara now has only Gehan Mendis to catch, who is 2,425 runs ahead of him. Mendis used to play for Lancashire (1974-1985) and Sussex (1986-1993). Sangakkara is followed by Mahela Jayawardene, Thilan Samaraweera, Laddie Outschoorn and much more.

Sangakkara reached the milestone playing for his current county side Surrey against Nottinghamshire during the ongoing County Championship. Having been just 18 runs behind the mark, the prolific southpaw scored 29 runs before Stephen Mullaney breached his defences.

The former Lankan wicketkeeper-batsman is also excited to return to the Caribbean Premier League with the Jamaica Tallawahs for the upcoming season which will start on 29th June.

Earlier In 2013, Sangakkara played a key role in Jamaica Tallawahs victorious campaign in CPL.

This year he was announced as one of the six marquee players the CPL will feature and was picked by the Tallawahs in the draft.

Recalling the 2013 campaign, Sangakkara recently said it was great fun to play Twenty20 cricket in the Caribbean and is waiting for another stint with the Jamaica Tallawahs.

“I remember going into the Tallawahs knowing that it was a great team with Chris Gayle, Andre Russell and (Chadwick) Walton all in there.

“We had some great overseas player in Murali (Muttiah Muralitharan) and a few others.” He said

The former Sri Lankan captain’s prowess in ODI needs no mention. He has scored 14,234 runs from 404 matches at an average of 41.98 with 25 centuries to his name. Apart from his batting genius, he was also a master behind the stumps as well, contributing to 482 dismissals behind the stumps.

When he retired from international cricket, he had 28,016 international runs to his name – behind only Sachin Tendulkar in terms of the most international runs scored in the cricketing history. Sangakkara is also the only batsman to find his name in the top 10 in terms of runs, average and centuries in Test cricket.

Based on these stats you may imagine that Sangakkara enjoyed a blistering start. But that isn’t the case. During his first year in Test arena, he averaged 33.31 without a single century. His start to ODI career was even slower. In first three years (2000-2003), he averaged only 28.55 with a strike rate of 69.39 and just two hundreds. So finishing with such mind-boggling statistics is obviously a testament to the hard work he put in over the years.