Kumar Sangakkara and the Batsmanship
Friday used to be a Q&A session day for young Sanga. His dad used to give a novel on Monday and asked questions from the book on Friday. That’s how the love for reading slowly developed for Kumar Sangakkara. Sanga’s father told him that if he wanted to become a good batsman then read the ‘Batsmanship’ by C. B. Fry.
Embed from Getty ImagesIn 2002 Sanga was playing in England and met with Charles Fry, grandson of the legendary C. B. Fry at MCC. Charles Fry presented him with the second edition of ‘Batsmanship’. Sanga was touched and thanked Charles for the wonderful present. He gave the book to his father and Mr. Sangakkara Sr. was overjoyed too.
Later, Sanga received a call from the hotel reception at 2 AM in the morning and the receptionist told that there was an urgent Fax for Sanga from home. Sanga was worried and hoped everyone was okay back at home. However, while going to reception, he thought, who would have sent Fax if the matter was serious and realized it must be his dad because he didn’t use a cellphone neither comfortable with email. It turned out two pages from C. B. Fry’s ‘Batsmanship’ and underlined at various sections. The message was “Please read it before you go to bat because this is going to help you..”. Sanga had no words.
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Featured Image Credit: Amal316 – CC BY-SA 4.0 (resized as per the need and changed the background)