5 great cricketers who retired in 2015
“If you play your heart out for what your jersey says on the front, everyone will remember what the jersey says on the back.”That famous quote from Miracle tells you more than you would ever need to know about any legend who has played any sport. Each year, an exodus of legends from your favourite sport force you to embrace heartbreak and move on.Some wait for those big shoes to be filled, some write paeans about how and why those big shoes can never be filled. History forgives these legends for their flaws, for how their careers ebbed and flowed, for their dips, for their losses and mythologizes them for the great players they were.Some years like 2015, witness more than their share of loss. Several great players bid adieu to international cricket. Most of these greats have played for so long, they represent an era, an entire generation which grew up watching them play, intimidate, compete, fight, win or lose.We take a look at five of these greats who impoverished the game through their exit in 2015 and the massive impact their presence and absence makes to cricket.
#1 Kumar Sangakkara
Sangakkara is that lucky legend, who walked out on his own terms, while still at his prime while still being his team’s best player, most reliable and most adored as well. As if there was any doubt over his credentials, he slammed four consecutive ODI centuries, that too at the game’s greatest stage, the 2015 ODI World Cup, a record that might stay for a really long time, and he has enough of those immortal records already.
The lanky southpaw is probably the closest bridge between his generation of batsmen and the previous – aggressive but beautiful to watch, defiant but elegant, attacking but responsible – batsmen who like Aristotle once said, played angrily not because they were angry but because they were required to be angry.
Sangakkara’s average towers even in comparison to those of greats like Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, Rahul Dravid and Brian Lara. That he racked up those numbers while being his country’s first choice wicket-keeper for over a decade, tells you what he was capable of, had he not taken up the additional responsibility – something that he elucidated with his last couple of years in international cricket, when he didn’t don the gloves while playing in whites.
Sangakkara finished with 12,400 runs at 57.40 in 134 Tests with 38 centuries and 52 half-centuries. In double-centuries, he was only next to Don Bradman himself, with 11. Sangakkara also has 182 catches to go with those runs and 20 stumpings.
In ODIs, he has 14,234 runs at 41.98 in 404 ODIs with 25 centuries and 93 half-centuries. He is next only to Sachin Tendulkar in ODI runs, although he had 402 catches and 99 stumpings to go along with his runs. Sangakkara’s greatness can also be inferred from his Test record, with his away average being a staggering 53, very close to his home average of 60.
Also, he averaged 60 in Australia, 61 in New Zealand and a respectable 41 in England. However, he averaged just 35 and 36 in India and South Africa. Sangakkara retired in a staggered format, playing two out of the three Tests each his team played at home, first against Pakistan and then against India, to respect his commitment to Surrey.
Although no memorable innings came from those appearances, Sangakkara by then had already made his name in the pantheon of great cricketers and is easily Sri Lanka’s most revered, arguably ahead of Muralitharan and Aravinda de Silva.