In
many minds, Sanga leads the world all time , though Bradman sticks out
high.
In Sanga’s last few innings, he repeatedly gave displays of cat and mouse
with the bowlers,
even
producing strokes he had never attempted before.
The following is told with
affection by his coach, Paul Farbrace
jksw
Kumar Sangakkara, the dazzling, kind perfectionist Sri Lanka cricket will miss like mad - Paul Farbrace salutes the retiring hero in Wisden
By Paul Farbrace
“What do you think? How’s it looking?” It was another practice
session at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, and Kumar Sangakkara was as inquisitive
and conscientious as ever. And very precise. He wanted his back foot to move
from middle and leg to middle and off. Not forward or back – just a fraction
across, which allowed his shoulders and hips to align when facing right-arm
seamers.
I was in the first of two coaching stints with Sri Lanka, as an
assistant to Trevor Bayliss (a few years later I would return as head coach),
and was doing my best to keep on top of the session. But I could see Sanga was
hitting the ball nicely. “Brilliant,” I told him. “No problems
whatsoever.”
He was unimpressed with my forensic analysis. “The first 10 balls
I faced, I moved my back foot in four or five different ways,” he said. “If I
ever ask you again, tell me the truth or don’t tell me anything.” It was a big
lesson for me as a coach. And it told me plenty about Kumar
Sangakkara.
One of Sanga’s first deeds after I arrived was to make 192 at
Hobart after Australia had set us 507. We made 410, and Sanga was given out by
Rudi Koertzen, caught at slip off shoulder and helmet: a stinker. That night we
were in the hotel bar when the umpires walked in. There was a pause, then Sanga
stepped forward: “Rudi! What can I get you to drink?”
If that was typical of him, so
was the way in which he used that innings to get even better. Over a
year later – by which stage he already had more than 6,000 Test runs – we were
in the indoor school at Colombo’s SSC. Sanga couldn’t quite get his movements
right, so he asked our analyst to access footage of the Hobart innings. He
wanted to check the movement of his left foot in relation to Brett Lee’s
delivery stride. Once he’d absorbed the information he needed, he was ready to
bat again.
Nothing distracted him from his practice. There were times when,
frankly, this made him a pain in the backside. Net sessions could last anything
from 20 minutes to an hour. When he was wearing his game head, there was a
selfishness about him. But no one minded, because that selfishness was usually
for the greater good.
Every coach who worked with him knew you ended up needing
reconstructive shoulder surgery. And your throwdowns had to be accurate. I was
giving him a few at Sydney, and in the previous game he’d missed a couple of
square-drives, so I thought I’d throw one or two a little wider. He left the
first alone, and just looked at me. When I did the same again a few balls
later, he stared back, then walked straight past me and into the dressing room.
We never mentioned it again, but I got the message.
Despite being an outsider, I was always made to feel welcome. The
number of dinners he and Mahela paid for got a bit embarrassing, but that’s the
Sri Lankan way. I remember how well they looked after some of the Yorkshire
lads when they were on a training camp in Sri Lanka. His wife, Yehali, cooked
dinner one night and a few of us were invited over. He and Andrew Gale, whom
he’d never met before, spent two hours talking about being left-handers – how
to hit over the top, how to deal with the rough and the swinging ball and
different angles of attack. Sanga won’t thank me for saying this, but he’s a
proper cricket badger.
He put his considerable brain to good use, though it was better if
you weren’t on the receiving end. If he was ever in danger of losing an
argument (which I believe is yet to happen), he would adopt one of two tactics:
speak more loudly, or use words you’d never heard of. He would dazzle you into
submission. No wonder he once trained to be a lawyer.
His best sledge was aimed at Nasser Hussain in Sri Lanka in
2003-04, when England were playing in Kandy. Nasser had called Murali – the
hometown hero – various names, so the locals weren’t best pleased. And it’s
fair to say Nasser was a bit grumpy with his own team-mates too. When he came
in to bat, Sanga piped up with: “What’s it like to be hated by both teams?” It
wasn’t abusive, but he knew how to get under your skin.
When I left Sri Lanka to join England in 2014, I wasn’t very
comfortable about the fact that my first series was against my old team. A few
people had accused me of leaving for the money, which was never the case, but
Sanga broke the ice ahead of the opening international of the tour, a Twenty20
match at The Oval. As I was walking up the steps to the pavilion, he was at the
top. There were quite a few journalists waiting around, and he shouted down:
“Traitor! Traitor’s here. Don’t talk to him, boys.”
That was Sanga to a
T: he was mischievous, quick-witted and charming, and everyone loved him for
it. Sri Lankan cricket will miss him like mad.
Paul Farbrace, England’s assistant coach, was assistant coach of
Sri Lanka between 2007 and 2009 and head coach in 2013-14
