Kumar Sangakkara to join Sky Sports commentary team in cricket shake-up

Exclusive: The 40-year-old former Sri Lankan great and the second-highest run-scorer in international history has signed up for his first full-time commentary role since retiring

Kumar Sangakkara retired from cricket last September (Rex Features)

Kumar Sangakkara is joining Sky Sports as a commentator, The Independent has learned. Sangakkara, the 40-year-old former Sri Lankan great and the second-highest run-scorer in international history, has signed up for his first full-time commentary role since retiring from the game last September, as Sky look to freshen up their on-air team ahead of the 2018 international summer with a number of new faces.

As well as Sangakkara, who will commentate on England’s Test series against Pakistan and India as well as their one-day international and Twenty20 encounters, Ricky Ponting has signed up to commentate on England’s ODI series against Australia in June. The former Australian captain impressed for BT Sport during last winter’s Ashes coverage, and will be at the microphone for Australia’s first international engagement since the ball-tampering scandal that saw their captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner banned for a year.

Shane Warne will not be part of Sky’s commentary line-up this summer, although the intention is for him to return in time for the 2019 Ashes. There will also be enhanced roles for female commentators, with former England bowlers Ebony Rainford-Brent and Isa Guha taking on a number of England men’s games as well as the women’s ODI and T20 tri-series against South Africa and New Zealand.

Meanwhile, Sky have also signed Wasim Akram and Harbhajan Singh as pundits for the Pakistan and India series respectively. But it is Sangakkara who is the most intriguing of Sky’s new signings, the channel’s first full-time commentator from Asia (not including guest summarisers).

An impressive media performer as a player, Sangakkara has made tentative steps into the media since retirement, cutting his teeth during last summer’s Champions Trophy, and beginning a regular column in the relaunched Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine.

His oratory skills also won praise in 2011 when he delivered the Cowdrey Lecture at Lord’s on the role of cricket in Sri Lankan history, a speech widely regarded as one of the finest in the event’s two-decade history. Sky’s roster of existing voices – David Gower, Michael Atherton, Nasser Hussain, David Lloyd, Ian Botham, Michael Holding and the highly-regarded Rob Key – has been retained ahead of a packed 2018 summer, which will see England’s men’s and women’s teams playing a potential 59 days of international cricket across all formats.