5 players that Sri Lanka have not been able to replace

#1 Kumar Sangakkara

Kumar Sangakkara is as good as it gets

The best batsman that Sri Lanka has produced and perhaps the finest left-handed batsman ever, Kumar Sangakkara is probably is the toughest Sri Lankan cricketer to replace. He is considered as the most polished and prudent of batsmen in cricket.

Over the course of his 15-year career, Sangakkara has scored over 28,000 international runs including as many as 63 centuries. He has broken and surpassed many batting records in the process and established himself as one of the legends of the game.

In fact, he even won a fan poll to find the ODI greatest player of all time beating Sachin Tendulkar in the final. Besides his immense batting prowess, he even successfully kept wickets for Sri Lanka and also captained them to the final in the 2011 ICC World Cup.

He retired from international cricket in 2015 and ever since, it has been as if the Sri Lankan batting tank has gone dry for runs. In Sanga’s absence, the batsmen have failed on many occasions to put up a decent total on the board and as a result, have suffered many defeats. Sri Lanka desperately needs someone like Upul Tharanga or Angelo Mathews to step up and take the responsibility of scoring runs for the team and guiding them to some much-needed victories.

It’s very sad that once a world cup winning team (1996) now stands a possible risk of not being eligible for the direct qualification for the 2019 world Cup. It’s time that experienced players such as Chandimal, Tharanga, Mathews, Kusal Perera and Thisara Perera come to the fore and resurrect Lankan cricket.