Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara has the rails run to end his ODI career by winning the coveted player of the tournament award as the Cricket World Cup field heads for home.
The 37-years-young keeper batsman has already set two new world records – four centuries on the trot, and becoming the first player to crack the 500-dismissal mark.
The centuries – 105*, 117*, 104, and 124 – took Sangakkara out of the three tons on the trot pack of Zaheer Abbas,(1982), Saeed Anwar (1993), Herschelle Gibbs (2002), AB de Villiers (2010), Quinton de Kock (2013), and Ross Taylor’s set last year.
His 501 dismissals, including 402 catches and 99 stumpings, has him well ahead of two retired champions in Adam Gilchrist’s 472 with 417 catches and 55 stumpings, and Mark Boucher’s 424 with 402 catches and 22 stumpings.
Taking nothing away from Sangakkara’s achievement, he’s played 403 ODIs, compared to Gilchrist’s 287, and Boucher’s 295.
While Sangakkara has a healthy lead as the best player of the tournament, there are plenty of worthy contenders ready to pounce in the run to the judge.
Sangakkara has scored the most runs with 496 at 124, but de Villiers with 417 at 83, and Tillakaratne Dilshan’s 395 at 79 are knocking on the door with the finals series still to come after the completion of the pool games.
And that could well bring in the masters-blasters like West Indian Chris Gayle, Australian David Warner, and Kiwi captain Brendon McCullum who are very capable of ripping off big scores in quick smart time.
Even Australian Glenn Maxwell, if he continues to play smart cricket instead of being too smart for his own good, could well figure in the award.
In fact, the two teams that reach the final will have the benefit of the extra game, but we are a long way from that.
There are a handful of bowlers who could be genuine contenders, led by three Kiwis – pacemen Trent Boult and Tim Southee, with veteran spinner Daniel Vettori in great form.
Boult heads the wicket-takers with 13 at 13.69, Southree has 13 at 16.84, while Vettori has 12 at a miserly 11.33.
South African giant Morne Morkel has 13 at 16.38, while Mitchell Starc has played one game less than the others, with the game against Bangladesh at the Gabba abandoned due to torrential rain.
Nonetheless Starc has still claimed 12 wickets at 10.16, the lowest average among the leading bowlers, and there’s the chance of a big haul tomorrow against Scotland in Hobart.
There are two more genuine contenders if India make the final to defend their title they won four years ago.
Batsmen Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dharwan must fire if Indiia is to go that far, and as a result will be in the voting mix.
But Kumar Sangakkara is the one to beat, he has the runs and scalps on the board with a “catch me if you can” grip on the tournament’s major individual award.
While a premature retirement isn’t the solution, he or England want, he may be forced into it if he can’t maintain a long run of matches.
Check out some of the short-arm pull shots from Rocky Flintoff!
Harshal Patel was not a happy man!
David Lord has been remembered as an icon of Australian sports journalism following his death, aged 84. The renowned writer and broadcaster was an…
Sign the man up for a contract next season!
A brutal century by Travis Head has blasted Sunrisers Hyderabad back into the Indian Premier League play-off places in another match for bowlers to…
