3 min readUpdated: Mar 18, 2026 05:24 PM IST
Former Sri Lanka skipper and one of the greatest left-handed batters the world has ever seen, Kumar Sangakkara, recently narrated an intriguing story about the time an abrupt fax from his father, Kshema Sangakkara, sent him into a panic while he was on tour in Australia.
“I was in Australia once, playing a Test match, and I was woken up very early in the morning. The hotel reception called and said, ‘There’s an urgent fax.’ And I got up in a panic… thinking someone was ill or something had happened,” Sangakkara said on the High Performance Podcast on YouTube.
“I was worried about my parents, and then I stopped and thought, in the age of mobile phones, who in the hell would send a fax? And I immediately knew it was my father. It had to be my father. So I said, please send it up, and they did. There were four A4 sheets tucked into it. I took it out, and it was just a few underlined chapters from Donald Bradman’s book on batting. Underlined passages saying: ‘Read this before you go out to bat tomorrow,’” he added.
Sangakkara reflected on the deep influence his parents had on his life and career. “When you’re a kid, you go through different stages of how you understand your parents. You listen to them at the start, and then you doubt everything that they say, especially in your teens. I think it was Mark Twain, I always remember reading this saying: ‘When I was 16, my father was embarrassing. He was a stupid old man. But by the time I was 21, I was amazed at what he had learnt in five years,’” he said with a laugh.
“So, looking back now, you think how lucky I was to have that in my life from both my parents. They took so much time out of their lives to spend it with me and my other siblings. And that influence is really the cornerstone of who I am today,” said a proud Sangakkara, hailing his parents.
‘My parents have never made a fuss of anything’
Sangakkara, who scored 12,400 runs in 134 Tests at an average of 57.40, has always spoken highly of his family. In his famous retirement speech in 2015, he had mentioned the sacrifices of his parents while ending his international career in front of his entire family.
“Today was always going to be special for a lot of reasons. It was the first time that I had my parents, siblings, wife, and children all together in one place watching me play. That is always going to be the memorable part of my game. Not the on-field part. But not being able to spend time with my wife, children, and parents… My parents have never made a fuss of anything. They rarely come to the games or see me off during the games. But they keenly follow my game,” he had revealed.
