Kumar Sangakkara scored his 19th Test century and stayed unbeaten as Sri Lanka held on for a draw against Pakistan in the dead rubber at the SSC
The boy who couldn't bowl !!!!!!!!!!!!
As a boy in outback New South Wales he was so shy he left school at the first opportunity to avoid having to speak in class, despite being in the A-stream.
At 16 he was in charge of a vast and struggling farm during the day and bowling against a 40-gallon water drum at night. Despite relentless practice he failed to shine even in a bush side called Backwater.
Undeterred, at 19 he drove an old caravan the 284 miles south-east to Sydney to try his luck in grade cricket. He knew no one in the city and lived on chocolate bars. But the higher the level he played, the better he did. "I just loved competition," he says.
Via a stint at the Academy (Brad Hodge, an ex-academician, calls McGrath's obsession with pig-skinning videos "confronting"), the boy who couldn't bowl ended with 563 Test wickets, more than any fast bowler.
However, he finally met an opponent that will power could not defeat. In 1997 his girlfriend Jane was diagnosed with cancer, two years after they had met in a Hong Kong nightclub. Eleven years later her funeral was held in the same Sydney church in which they had been married.
No comments:
Post a Comment