Early life

Kumar Sangakkara was born to Kumari Surangana and Swarnakumara Sangakkara, an attorney-at-law at Matale, Sri Lanka in 1977.^[13] His parents settled in Kandy, where he grew up in his childhood. Kumar received his primary and secondary education at Trinity College, Kandy, a private boys' school in central highlands of Sri Lanka. He has two sisters: Thushari and Saranga, and an elder brother: Vemindra, all who have made national level achievements at their school-life. Sangakkara too started playing a number of sports: badminton, tennis, swimming, table tennis and cricket at the junior school. He was able to win national colors for badminton and tennis at his younger age. The then principal of the Trinity College, Leonard de Alwis, advised his mother to encourage Kumar to concentrate on cricket.^[14]

He represented his school's under-13 cricket XI under coach Upananda Jayasundera.^[13] Berty Wijesinghe coached Sangakkara for under-15, under-17, under-19 and first XI sqads.^[15] He was awarded The Trinity Lion, the most prestigious prize awarded for a Trinity sportsman, for his exceptional batting and wicket-keeping skills in the 1996 season, at the age of 19.^[16] Sangakkara was selected to represent Sri Lanka A cricket team at a tour to South Africa in 1998–99. His knock of unbeaten 156 against Zimbabwe A team at a one-day match,^[17] helped him secure a place at the Sri Lankan national cricket team later that year.

Sanga did his Advanced Level examination in the Arts stream in 1996. He was also awarded The Ryde Gold Medal, for the best all-round student in his year at his school. Following his father, who is a lawyer in Kandy, he entered to the Law Faculty of the University of Colombo, but was unable to finish his degree due to cricket tours.^[18] Kumar was a chorister and played the violin during his school-days.^[19]