Quinton de Kock stopped his celebrations midway. The 22-year-old stood, just as the rest of SCG, to bid adieu to the two legends. It wasn’t the end that Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene had envisaged for themselves, but then life doesn’t always follow scripts.
There were a few tears and a lot of handshakes as Jayawardene and Sangakkara vanished through the tunnel. Sanga will play a few more Tests before calling it quits altogether this August, while this is the last time we will see Jayawardene play international cricket.
Mahela got a century in this World Cup, but he clearly wasn’t at his best. Sangakkara on the other hand, despite going out as early as the quarters, remains a claimant for the Man of the Tournament award. He has four centuries, and even on Wednesday, he was the only man holding fort for Lanka.
“Why are you going when you have so much to give?” somebody asked him. Sanga smiled. “Retirement for me is never about form. I know I could have played a couple of more seasons but had decided that this was time to go and I stuck to that. I have tried to give my best to the game, but then it goes on,” Sangakkara said.
Any Sri Lankan you talk to would insist that the country needs Sangakkara for some more time. “I know how much they love me and I have grown as a human being because of that. But let’s not be too sentimental about it. There’s always a time for everything and I felt this was the time,” Sangakkara said. The stylist feels that both he and Mahela are leaving Sri Lankan cricket in very good hands. “Angelo is an extremely impressive captain, Thirimanne is shaping up so well, Dilshan is going to play for a couple of more seasons, and we can’t but be positive about the future.”
He spoke about his comrade Jayawardene as well, terming him as “one of the greatest servants of Sri Lankan cricket”.
“He, along with Aravinda, are two of the greatest Sri Lankan players. It was an absolute privilege playing with him and he will be sorely missed. But we can always look back fondly at what he has given to Sri Lanka.”
Sangakkara says that it’s a relief that the “high stress, the ice-baths, the warm-ups and the recovery sessions are finally over”. But you could feel that he would miss all those, just as the fans would miss him playing those beautiful drives on the off-side. “But if anyone says they enjoyed playing with and against me, I would be happy,” said Sanga, taking his curtain call.
