PRIDE AND DESIRE IS VITAL TO CRICKET’S GREATS
Some sportsmen are motivated by glory, others by money. But there is a small elite who derive their greatest pleasure from a job well done. Kumar Sangakkara is among those who take an inordinate pride in their performance; cricketers motivated to their last fibre whether playing in the park or the Test arena.Why else would ‘Sanga’ bat and battle his way to five successive hundreds for Surrey in the County Championship?
Cricket fans perhaps take such motivation as a given and, at the start of a player’s career, they would be right to do so.
But Sangakkara is 39, has played 134 Tests for Sri Lanka in which he averaged a staggering 57.4 with 38 hundreds; has batted and kept wicket in most of the 404 one-day internationals he has notched up; and featured in countless T20 matches for various franchises around the globe.
When you have that kind of back catalogue it is legitimate to inquire what in cricket still turns him on.
Scoring five hundreds on the bounce is a staggering commitment to excellence whichever way you look at it, doubly so when you consider he has only been with Surrey for just over two seasons.
County cricket has been lit by some fabulous overseas players before but most were stirred into performance, at least in part, because they still had their own Test and one-day selectors to impress. Sangakkara retired from international cricket two years ago, though you might argue that raging at the dying of the light can be the greatest motivation of all.
Whatever it is that spurs him on, and nobody I spoke to could quite put a finger on it, it is mightily impressive. For one thing, he is not the kind of batsman, say like fellow left-hander Adam Gilchrist, who can chance his arm and smash his way to a hundred with a fair wind and a sturdy willow.
Sangakkara’s hundreds are constructed, and while those who have seen the recent ones speak of how easy he makes batting look, he is prepared to graft when necessary, something not always easy to do in your dotage after the big battles have been fought.
“I feel he has been as committed to us as he was to Sri Lanka,” said Alec Stewart, Surrey’s director of cricket. “He just has very high standards of personal pride, something evident in his attention to detail when he practises. One thing for certain, he doesn’t get bored batting, unlike some I could mention.”
Incredibly, it might have been six hundreds on the bounce for Sangakkara had he not fallen for 84 in the second innings against Essex, after he’d made a double hundred in the first. His downfall, caught and bowled by Tom Westley, a decent-but-reluctant off-spinner, came as something of an irony given how untroubled he had looked against spin.
One former Essex player who watched him bat at Chelmsford talked about how, despite Surrey plunging to 31 for five on the opening morning, everything that was bowled to Sangakkara seemed to end up hitting the middle of his bat.
Of course, reputations like his can force bowlers to be nervous or try too hard, but it would be wrong to make out that this was any more than a minor factor in his dominance over proceedings.
“He plays the ball late, never looks hurried and his perfect footwork means he is never compromised,” said the onlooker at Essex. “He just looked a class above everyone else.”
Sam Curran, with whom Sangakkara shared a 191-run partnership for the sixth wicket against Essex, said afterwards what a pleasure it had been to be at the other end watching a true master ply his
Sangakkara retired from international cricket two years ago, but it could be that raging at the dying of the light can be the greatest motivation of all
trade. “He just made it all look so simple,” said Curran.
An articulate and well-educated man, Sangakkara is in his third and last year at Surrey (despite the run of centuries), so it is not a matter of ticking off county cricket as part of a bucket list.
In any case, he has had spells with both Warwickshire and Durham previously, though Surrey is clearly bringing the best out of him, something that may have something to do with that swanky apartment they got for him overlooking the Thames.
Still, the motivation, both puzzling and marvel-inducing at the same time, reminds me of Graham Gooch, whose desire to do equally well for Essex as for England was not shared by many Test regulars of the era.
Most of us believe we do our best but see that as an attitude to be called upon when the big moment strikes. Gooch geared his preparation and training to fulfilling that pact with the added rider that any failure to prepare would only let himself and others down. That immense personal pride drove him to become England’s highest scorer of Test runs until Alastair Cook – an eager adopter of the Gooch template – overtook him last year.
Two examples of Gooch’s incredible motivation for Essex occurred at Trent Bridge in 1978 and at Derby in 1992. In the first, it was the last Championship game of the season and Essex had already secured second place behind Kent, who they could not catch.
In the final session of a weather-hit game, Mike Smedley, Nottinghamshire’s captain, set them 222 to win off 36 overs – a nominal target back then that most teams would have shaken hands over after 50 minutes’ batting. But not Gooch.
Persuading fellow opener Alan Lilley – making his Championship debut – that the runs could be scored, Gooch made a quickfire 97 before being dismissed with 63 runs still needed, his attitude inspiring Lilley to finish unbeaten on 100 as Essex won the game by nine wickets in 34.5 overs. That the win counted for little materially made it impressive, with Gooch simply fancying the challenge, much as he did against Derbyshire 14 years later.
On that occasion, Essex had already won the Championship and, after some demob happy batting in our first innings, we found ourselves chasing 440 in the last innings of the game against an attack containing Ian Bishop, Dominic Cork, Devon Malcolm and Ole Mortensen.
Provoked by the challenge of winning a game we did not need to, Gooch scored an unbeaten 123 at number five to see us home by four wickets.
Drawing on those same motivations stirs within Sangakkara and he will be a huge loss to Surrey when he calls it a day at the end of the season.
“I must go and see if the ECB will let us bat 14 next season,” said Stewart. “Because that is what we are going to need to replace him.”