The greatest men's internationals of the century No. 7: Kumar Sangakkara

Easy on the eyes, punishing on the bowlers, Sri Lanka's batting behemoth was elegance with teeth

Andrew Fidel Fernando

Published: May 26, 2026, 2:04 AM (3 hrs ago)

7. Kumar Sangakkara

Overall: 28,016 runs at 46.77 ave, 66.57 SR; 671 dismissals

You can make the case for Sangakkara's greatness from all sorts of angles. In Tests, the numbers are, frankly, a little ridiculous. He has 12,400 runs at an average of 57.40. If you consider him as a specialist batter alone (he was convinced to give up keeping wickets in this format early on in his career), he hit 9283 runs at 66.78. Sure, he scored heavily against weaker teams, but he also averaged over 60 in Australia and New Zealand, and hit ten Test hundreds just against Pakistan. He also hit 11 double-centuries - just one short of Don Bradman, has centuries against every opponent he played, and if we're counting his wicketkeeping in Tests, he also took 124 catches behind the sticks and pulled off 20 stumpings.

And then there is his limited-overs career, which was just as epic. He was the most consistent run machine in Sri Lanka's greatest white-ball team, hitting 14,234 ODI runs and 25 hundreds. He wasn't an explosive T20I batter, but in a team with an excellent attack, his consistency still worked. He top-scored for Sri Lanka in the World Cup final in 2014 - the country's first global triumph since 1996.

But Sangakkara wasn't just a sterile accumulator of runs. That bent-kneed cover drive made the purists swoon. He went from once being an unsteady player of spin to one of its most voracious tormentors. In limited-overs cricket, he never gave up the gloves, claiming hundreds of catches and stumpings, some of them spectacular.

Rangana Herath on Sangakkara: Sanga's biggest strength was his preparation, remarkable consistency, and intelligence, which were helped by his mental toughness and adaptability. Those qualities defined him both as a batter and as a leader. His exceptional calmness and focus really helped him handle pressure right through his career. He was also a nightmare to bowl to because he was very strong on both sides of the wicket and bowlers had such a small margin for error. With his solid batting technique and analytical mind, he was always thinking a few steps ahead of the bowlers. He also knew exactly which bowler to attack and when, and that gave him a lot of control over the game.

Something that was really special was him scoring four hundreds in a row in the 2015 ODI World Cup. That was in two different countries, in four different venues, against four different teams. That sums up his consistency and adaptability. I feel truly fortunate to have witnessed all four innings.

Stats are for the 2000-2025 period

Andrew Fidel Fernando is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo. @afidelf

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