Retired Sri Lankan skipper, Kumar Sangakkara has won Cricket Australia’s fan poll to decide the greatest One Day International cricketer of all time. Sangakkara beat Sachin Tendulkar in the final round of the fan poll which was conducted over 40 days.
The Sri Lankan is second only to Sachin Tendulkar in the record for most runs scored in One Day Internationals. Sangakkara managed to score 14,234 runs in 404 ODI matches for Sri Lanka to Tendulkar’s 18,426 runs in 463 matches. Sangakkara won due to the fact that he also contributed as a brilliant wicketkeeper throughout his career and an impassioned plea for votes by Sangakkara’s fans throughout the world.
Also read: Why Kumar Sangakkara is one of the greatest Test batsmen of all time
The G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time) poll included 64 players who were roughly divided amongst categories of bowlers, batsmen and all-rounders or wicketkeepers. The cricketers were pitted against each other in head to head knockout rounds similar to those of a tennis tournament.
Sangakkara faced fellow wicketkeeper-batsmen, MS Dhoni, Adam Gilchrist and Ab de Villiers on the way to the quarter-finals where the Sri Lankan was voted to be better than iconic Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne. He defeated legendary Pakistani fast bowler Imran Khan in the semi-finals to set up a final clash with India’s Sachin Tendulkar.
Tendulkar, who is arguably the greatest One Day International batsman of all time, faced an easy first round clash with his compatriot Rohit Sharma. He was then up against Saeed Anwar and Australia’s Michael Bevan in successive rounds.
In the quarter-finals, the Indian was up against West Indian batting legend Sir Vivian Richards who was the original “Master Blaster”. The two players could not be compared on stats alone as they were from different eras. Tendulkar walked away with the honours at the end of a fiercely contested round. Sanath Jayasuriya was voted out in the semi-final round as Tendulkar reached the finals of the fan poll.
Sangakkara retired at the end of the 2015 World Cup in a breathtaking manner. He scored a record-breaking four consecutive centuries in the tournament, as Sri Lanka lost to South Africa in the quarter-finals of the World Cup.
Another legendary Sri Lankan batsman, Mahela Jayawardene also retired at the end of the tournament, marking the end of an era for Sri Lankan cricket
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