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Sanga retiring, where does he place?

Sanga retiring, where does he place?

  • 2nd greatest Test batsman ever

    Votes: 3 5.3%
  • Just above Tendulkar and Lara

    Votes: 3 5.3%
  • Same level as Tendulkar and Lara

    Votes: 21 36.8%
  • Just below Tendulkar and Lara

    Votes: 30 52.6%

  • Total voters
    57

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
Is our hero getting any stick in his own Country for retiring at 1-1 in the series with India and then seeing them lose the decider.?
 

honestbharani

Whatever it takes!!!
Wasn't that due to his earlier promise to Surrey thinking he can retire straight after the WC? From what I understand, since SLC asked him to stay on, he worked out playing 2 tests each of both these series as a compromise...
 

Contra

Cricketer Of The Year
The thing I don't get with Sanga is why he specifically choose to split his tests for both series equally, either he should have played the full Pak series and the starting India test, or he should have played 1 test against Pak and a full series against India. I know they requested him to play despite him not wanting to, but once you've committed back either do it in a proper manner or not at all.

I know for sure any Indian bat would have got massive stick for pulling something similar.
 

Black_Warrior

Cricketer Of The Year
Here's what I don't get though.. Why does he want to play for Surrey so badly NOW of all times, when he is so completely done with cricket.
 

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Is right next to London. He can play in the daytime, party at night. Perfect retirement plan actually.
 

Red

The normal awards that everyone else has
Base himself somewhere and not have to travel extensively. I'd love to play county cricket if I had the talent. Awesome lifestyle I'd imagine. And you'd imagine someone like Sanga would be looked after financially very well by a county club. The just jet off for a few weeks to make a zillion a year in the IPL. Awesome.
 

Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
Is our hero getting any stick in his own Country for retiring at 1-1 in the series with India and then seeing them lose the decider.?
Rather it was daft from SLC to play the last match on a green Mamba. Sanga is easily the best player of pace from both sides, so the first or the second test would have been in SSC. Sanga is one of the players who handled Ishant with ease, and we saw in SSC track Ashwin was not that threatening.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
Base himself somewhere and not have to travel extensively. I'd love to play county cricket if I had the talent. Awesome lifestyle I'd imagine. And you'd imagine someone like Sanga would be looked after financially very well by a county club. The just jet off for a few weeks to make a zillion a year in the IPL. Awesome.
I don't think awesome is the word for it.

Chopping and changing formats from day to day, travelling from game to game without a break. Relatively speaking I'd say it's a **** lifestyle.
 

Red

The normal awards that everyone else has
I don't think awesome is the word for it.

Chopping and changing formats from day to day, travelling from game to game without a break. Relatively speaking I'd say it's a **** lifestyle.
I was expressing that I think it'd be awesome.
 

pardus

School Boy/Girl Captain
I wonder where Sanga's place now is in DoG's ATG batsmen rating. I remember he came above Tendulkar, in the top 10 at the time DoG posted his rating.

I remember his 100* out of a team total of 170 against Shane Bond & co. in 2006 (next highest was 24, only 2 other batsmen reached double figures). The match is more remembered for McCullum's unsportly run out of Murali. Nevertheless, it was a phenomenal knock by Sanga. What was even more astonishing was in his very next innings he scored a 156* out of a team total of 268 (and once again only 3 other Sri Lankan batsmen reached double figures!). This time though it was a match winning knock.

As a rabid fan of aggressive, fast bowling in Test match cricket, I thoroughly enjoyed Malinga's bowling to NZ's in their first innings of that match. It looked like Murali's incident in the previous match fired up Malinga. I remember him practically squeezing the life out of NZ captain Fleming with a series of well directed, high pace bouncers. It was reminiscent of WI fast bowling in the 80s. NZ top & middle order simply wilted away against his hostile pace in their first innings. I still have the cricinfo commentary of the over that he bowled to Fleming & Astle. It went like this:

12.1 Malinga to Fleming, no run, Malinga continues to torment Fleming. Another lovely delivery shaving past the outside edge.
12.2 Malinga to Fleming, no run, another slanted delivery, this time Fleming makes contact, steers it to point
12.3 Malinga to Fleming, no run, The slinger fires in a bouncer and Fleming ducks under.
12.4 Malinga to Fleming, no run, Another well directed bouncer, Fleming sways inside the line. 145 kmph delivery. fast and furious. Malinga is coming hard at Fleming
12.5 Malinga to Fleming, OUT, Malinga gets his man! Bangs another one short, it rears up and shapes away from Fleming who tries to get his bat out of that shoulder-high delivery but fails. The ball runs off the face of the bat and into the gloves of the 'keeper. Huge wicket! SP Fleming c †HAPW Jayawardene b Malinga 0 (8m 6b 0x4 0x6) SR: 0.00
12.6 Malinga to Astle, no run, Good Afternoon! Malinga pings Astle's throat with a sharp bouncer, Astle ducks down in a hurry. Perfume ball as they say.

I find it sad that even though both these Test knocks of Sanga were of the highest class, and were played as recently as late 2006, neither of these knocks are available on youtube. I do think Sanga's recognition (or lack of it) has lot do with Sri Lanka's lack of clout (either financial or tradition-wise) as a cricketing power.
 

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