Given his ability to bowl flat and quick, and his canny variations in pace and the angle of delivery, Sanath was ahead of his time not only with the bat but also with the ball. At the death, he consistently clocked north of 100kmph, slinging the ball into the blockhole from his left-arm angle—a skill that would have made any modern shorter-format left-arm spinner envious. Accordingly, it is unsurprising that Sanath was one of the go-to men of his captains at the death.
As an homage to this less spoken-about skill of the Sri Lankan legend, here we recount five of his most memorable death-over masterclasses.