282 DELIVERIES, 27 FOURS, 1 SIX
AUSTRALIA V SRI LANKA, 2ND TEST, HOBART, 2007
Australia 542-5dec (Jaques 150, Hussey 132) & 210-2dec (Jaques 68) beat Sri Lanka 246 (Jayawardene 104; Lee 4-82) & 410 (Sangakkara 192, Atapattu 80; Lee 4-87) by 96 runs
OPPOSITION ATTACK: Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson, Stuart Clark, Stuart MacGill, Michael Clarke
A player’s worth can best be measured by how he goes against the best. Set 507 to win against Lee and Johnson, Sangakkara took his team to within 96 of victory on the fifth afternoon. Resuming on that final day 107* having grafted the previous day, he gave an exhibition in batting with the tail, farming the strike, blocking the first few balls and then unleashing on the final few as the field was brought up.
He was finally given out – wrongly by umpire Koertzen, who later apologised – eight short of a double-century. “You have good days and bad days, and then some days when you are able to do things that you normally can’t. That was a special day for me.” Brett Lee later added that no player had ever played him better.
