Kumar Sangakkara's retirement will take the sheen off world cricket

Guard of honour for the legend

Sangakkara was cut from the curvaceous cloth. Being a gifted back foot player, the back foot stroke-play came naturally to him and gradually, he became astute on the front foot as well. His drive through the covers and extra-cover by getting down on his knee is a rapturous sight for the cricket romantics. Sangakkara’s cover drives are not just mere drives, but they are cricket’s most ravishing spectacles. Like the golden beaches of Sri Lanka, the tall palm trees which stand like a saint beside the beaches and the musical waves of the blue ocean, it ebbs away all the stresses of life.

And what about his back foot punches through the off side? At times, they were more attractive than his cover drives. They seemed to be like the lush green forests of Sri Lanka while the hook and pull shots were like the gushing waterfalls. His batting display has always been like a lost paradise – a paradise of tranquility and musical charm.

How enticing it would have been, had Sir Neville Cardus, who first placed the left-handers in a different aesthetic category, witnessed Sanga’s artistic batting. He would have gone on to write this about Sangakkara which he once wrote about Frank Wolley, “ His cricket is compounded of soft airs and fresh flavours. The bloom of the year is on it, making for sweetness. And the very brevity of summer is in it too, making for loveliness”. And his delightful heart would have written more lines like these, “His immense power is lightened by a rhythm which has in it as little obvious propulsion as a movement of music by Mozart”.

As the era of Brian Lara and Saeed Anwar came to an end, the cricketing World started to get crowded by the power-hitters. Left-handers like Mathew Hayden or Chris Gayle were murderers of the cricket ball while Graeme Smith was a prolific run scorer with less grace and elegance. Words like elegant cut, lazy elegance or graceful drive by the left-handers were almost getting lost from cricket. But thankfully, Kumar Sangakkara didn’t let grace and elegance vanish completely from cricket. With the bat, he always used to orchestrate a tender kiss between the bat and ball rather than a slap. The story of his batting has been all about the exotic love with the ball.

Sangakkara will retire after playing the second Test against India in Colombo. There is an ongoing debate about his greatness, statistical comparisons along with the little master Sachin Tendulkar, crunching numbers about his batting feats and gosh, the statistical analysis just don’t stop. But, for a single moment has anyone thought about the emptiness Sangakkara’s retirement will create? Are there any left-handed batsmen left in the cricketing World to carry on his legacy? Soumya Sarkar looks promising, but how far will he go in Test cricket remains a moot question.

In fact, there aren’t any worthy successors of Sangakkara at present. People will talk about his hundreds, batting records and so on in years to come, but none will talk about the joy of watching his batting. It’s a practical world devoid of romantic hearts. Sometimes, the eyes can’t fathom what the heart can see. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. A cricket romantic feels the actual charm and romance behind the exhibition of a cricketer's skill.

Kumar Sangakkara the batsman is not only about statistics, but about sheer artistry and delight for the cricket romantics.

“Be an artist, in whatever little faculty possible. For the Earth, without ‘Art’ is just ‘Eh”

-Jasleen Kaur Gumber