5 best number three batsmen of all time

#2 Kumar Sangakkara

Sangakkara is one of the modern-day greats of the game

The Sri Lankan legend is still scoring runs for fun in first-class and T20 cricket despite bidding adieu to international cricket more than 2 years ago.

Sangakkara made the No 3 spot his own for Sri Lanka from an early stage itself and tops the leaderboard for more Test runs at the No 3 spot by far with 11679 runs from 207 innings - that's 1000 more than his nearest competitor.

His record in ODI cricket is not bad either as he is second only to Australia's Ricky Ponting with 9747 runs from 238 innings.

There have been suggestions that Sangakkara's record looks much better because of his exploits against the weaker opposition like Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, but statistics prove that those claims are unfounded.

It is also vital to consider that Sangakkara used to double up as a wicketkeeper for much of his career while also captaining the side. Not easy with a packed international calendar to deal with but Sangakkara did just fine as his impeccable numbers suggest.

He has kept getting better with age and Sri Lanka miss his presence badly. He signed off on the best possible note in T20I cricket by guiding Sri Lanka to the 2014 World T20 and he is still on the Top 10 charts for leading run-scorers in T20I cricket.