Mike Hussey has only bowled thrice in a Test innings on Sri Lankan soil. Remarkably, his figures in Sri Lanka read a collective 7-4-7-2. He took two wickets in five overs combined in the Pallekele Test in August 2011, but it was his spell of 2-1-5-0 that unwittingly catapulted a young kid into the limelight.
During the course of those two overs at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground here in Colombo, Hussey bowled to Kumar Sangakkara, who went down on one knee to essay his trademark cover-drive. The all-seeing eye of a roving television camera caught a little boy, hardly taller than the bat he was holding and his head nestled cosily in an oversized helmet, producing an identical stroke on the grassbanks where he was playing with his friends.
“A brilliant cover-drive. That’s a little Kumar Sangakkara, have a look at that.” Those words spilled out of the mouth of the late Tony Greig, lover of everything Sri Lankan, who was commentating at that time. In that one moment, with those few words, the life of Sharujan Shanmuganathan was to change forever.
Sharu was then all of five years old. His father N Shanmuganathan, a professional photographer who has only recently moved to cricket photography after having specialised in recording weddings for posterity, took him along to cricket matches because the father himself was very passionate about the sport and saw signs of interest in cricket in the boy when he was less than a year old. When the host broadcaster followed up Greig’s comments by showing split screen images of Sangakkara and little Sharu both essaying the cover-drive, you could tell why Greig was so excited.
Yes, Sharu is now all of nine years old and the Little Sanga theme might be stretching things a little. But who can blame Greig for seeing a little of Sanga in Sharu?
Sharu was at the R Premadasa Stadium with his father on Thursday (August 6), watching the Indians take on a Board President’s XI in a warm up game. Dressed in cricket whites with ‘Sharu Little Sanga’ emblazoned on his back, he cut a shy, quiet figure – an unremarkable nine-year-old if you didn’t know the story behind the legend on the tee-shirt.
