The most valuable player in the world | Thebigtip

Cricket is currently in the midst of a desert. Dusty, dry, unforgiving nothingness consumed with boredom and predictability. So drum the naysayers that is. These cynics, sowing their seeds of negativity with stories of corruption in the hideous concept of T20; of Indian politicians-cum-millionaires culling tradition and respect in the boardroom; and the loss of champion players would rather us believe that the game is not as good as it used to be and worse, in catastrophic decline.

Ridiculous. These are the same people that criticized the game when Australia went on streak after streak, winning Tests and One Day matches at will, somehow killing the game. The same people that would lambast the 50 over match and seek industry and innovation to create new revenues and crowds; and the same that backhandedly struck at the “establishment” and their tradition - those holed up in offices somewhere within the Lord’s Labyrinth. Rather than focus on this false apocalyptical reporting where nothing is ever good enough, let us focus on one player, and why, through him, we can look to an exciting future for the game.

Kumar Sangakkara is to elegance on and off the field as what England is to grey skies – they are inseparable. Has anyone seen him without a smile? Has anyone witnessed a poor innings from him? Has there ever been a thread of ill-repute surrounding him? And, importantly for the Sri Lankan team, has anyone seen him not make big-game runs? Sangakkara scored his seventh double century a few days ago; only 2 players in history have scored more, Lara and Bradman - not a bad duo to have in front of you. With that statistic alone he should be regarded amongst the greats of the game. But in the modern era he does not roll off the tongue as easily as Tendulkar, Ponting, Sehwag or even Kallis which, to a casual observer is a little confusing.

Of those five players Sangakkara has the best average (57) and the most double centuries. Tendulkar (56, 5), Ponting (54.5, 5) and Sehwag (54, 6) as great as they are do not stack up as well when referenced with the Sri Lankan captain. Jacques Kallis is the anomaly of the modern greats, having averaged over 55 in his career and never scored a Test Match double hundred, which is the major reason why he cannot be mentioned in the same sentence as the other four batsmen.

Critics will claim, as they tried to do with Muralitharan, that Sri Lanka play Zimbabwe and Bangladesh a lot more than other teams and this skews their performances upward. It is true that three of Sangakkara’s big scores have come against these minnows but he has only scored 1300 of his 8000 test runs against this opposition. Tendulkar has over 1800 runs and scored 2 of his 5 big scores against them which could be deemed as “bad” as Sangakkara. Ponting and Sehwag come out better in this analysis as their total combined runs against weakened opposition adds to less than 1000 runs. As highlighted by the run-fest last week in Colombo, Sangakkara has been left off the great list because he is thought of as only able to score big on batter-friendly pitches. This argument has three flaws.

Firstly, there are not too many players in the world that would say scoring a double century in a Test Match is easy. Secondly, the extension of the batter friendly argument is that each game ends in a lifeless draw, yet the previous Indian match was the first draw that a Sangakkara big innings produced. All of the other 6 resulted in victory for the Sri Lankan team. The third flaw comes from a look at the 3 other great players in world cricket at the moment. Ricky Ponting has only scored 1 of his 5 doubles outside of Australia; two of those have been on batting paradises in Hobart and Adelaide and a third in Melbourne where nearly 1400 runs were scored in the match. Tendulkar scored a double against New Zealand at Ahmedabad in a lifeless draw that the Kiwis could block out for 95 overs with the loss of only 2 wickets. His greatest big score was at Sydney in 2004, but India scored a massive 700 runs in the first innings, and Australia replied with nearly 500 - hardly bowling conditions. Sehwag has not scored a double hundred outside of the Sub-Continent, and is the epitome of the lifeless run-fests we have seen recently, none more so than the farcical opening partnership with Rahul Dravid in Lahore that yielded 410 runs before the game was called off.

Of all this statistical analysis, Kumar Sangakkara is at least equal to those who are deemed as greats of the game. Yet there is another factor to his game, besides standing behind the stumps most of his career, that needs to be embraced by all cricket followers.

Tendulkar and Ponting are approaching 40 years of age and realistically only have one or two more years to play at international level. As ambassadors of the game they have been unbelievable, Tendulkar world-wide, Ponting throughout Australia and England. Their loss will be felt hard when they do eventually retire and someone of exceptional quality has to fill that void. Of the three great players that will be left in world cricket, the game needs Sangakkara to be the best. He is simply a greater personality than the hard-nosed Kallis and as an international captain, and captain of potentially the best side in the world, he has more influence than Sehwag.

The worries for the game only come from aspects that Sangakkara cannot control. The Sri Lankan board has to use him wisely in promotions, understand their asset without burning him out and have to pay him enough money to keep him in the job. Most importantly however is the notion that he is now, and will be into the future, the best player in world cricket, something that everyone has to accept and understand. Even with Tendulkar seemingly on a new lease of life, and the tributes that flow for his technique, the reality is that Kumar Sangakkara is better to watch and a better batsman.