Before he made himself a legendary figure in South Australia by guiding the state home to a first Sheffield Shield in 29 years, Jason Sangha watched 19-year-old Sam Konstas dominate cricket’s biggest stage on Boxing Day.
Sangha did so with awe but also empathy. Back in 2017, Sangha was also a teenage sensation, making an assured century against the touring England side in Townsville, captaining Australia’s under-19s and then making his first Shield hundred for NSW at the SCG before he turned 20.
Jason Sangha was the toast of Adelaide after winning the Sheffield Shield.Credit: Getty Images
At the time, Sangha wore comparisons with Sachin Tendulkar, the only player of comparable age to have made a hundred against an England team. Subsequent years were not so kind. Sangha managed only two more centuries for the Blues over the next five seasons, and moved to SA after losing his NSW contract.
Reunited with his former under-19s coach Ryan Harris and at home in a dressing room composed largely of fellow travellers from interstate, Sangha has flourished this season, so much so that he is now in the frame for an Australia A tour of India later this year. He has a word of advice for Konstas, still his teammate at the Sydney Thunder: don’t get too high, or too low.
“We love a teenage sensation,” Sangha told this masthead. “The challenge is when things don’t go your way, how you get through that. For me, a couple of seasons where I didn’t have the success I wanted, suddenly the roles get reversed a bit and there’s more doubt and questioning of your ability. Then those remarks about being a prodigy or the next big thing can definitely weigh on you.
“From Sam’s point of view I think he’s handling it really well and he’s a great player. If I had my time again I’d just like to probably not ride the rollercoaster as much.
“When things are going really well I really jump on the back of them, and when things weren’t going well I probably got really hard on myself. That comes with a bit of age and maturity I hope, just to be able to stay level. So when things aren’t going well, not to get too beat up, just stay really calm and always be grateful.”
Articulate, intelligent but also cheeky in familiar company, Sangha hailed from Newcastle and its tough club cricket school – as a 12-year-old, he had an opponent threaten to kill him.
Moving to Sydney to play for NSW aged 17, he didn’t just face a run of outs for the state team. In 2022, Sangha was captain on the night the Sydney Thunder were bowled out for a measly 15, and on his return home opened mail accusing him of being a “match-fixing bastard”.
This summer was better on the Thunder front, as the team reached the final, where Sangha sculpted 67 from 42 balls. He is close with fellow south Asian squad mates Gurinder Sandhu and Tanveer Sangha (no relation), and the trio have been known to go to McDonald’s together for a late-night meal after Thunder games.
Jason Sangha during his century against England, aged 18, in 2017.Credit: Getty Images
Selector knowledge of Sangha’s high ceiling kept him in the NSW team and squad for arguably longer than he might otherwise have been. But after averaging 26.95 over 37 first-class games with the Blues, Sangha’s last chance came in December 2023. It would be another year before he played a Shield game for SA.
Harris and SA’s state talent manager Shaun Williams based their faith on near universal opinion that Sangha had always looked the part, and merely needed the right environment around him to flourish.
Knowing how well SA’s bowling unit functioned, Harris pushed for a similar level of cohesion among the batters, and with specialist coach Steve Stubbings arranged for pre-season sessions that put players under more pressure. That included match scenarios but also the use of distracting noise that Sangha and others had to push through.
Tellingly, when Sangha did not immediately make runs in pre-season trials, Harris and Williams asked him to go to club cricket and earn his spot in the Shield team. This was a different mindset to all the opportunities he had been given in NSW.
“I don’t just get gifted a cap, I still want to earn it, and needed to earn respect from teammates and the cricket community,” Sangha said.
“I didn’t know that was going to be my last game for NSW. Then I didn’t know when the next game was going to come. The way I was introduced to the [SA] team was the right way, and the conversation with Rhino and Shaun and everyone was really positive.
“They wanted me to earn that spot and I didn’t have credits in the bank yet. When the opportunity came I made sure I grabbed it, and I understood that I needed to earn some stripes first before I walk into a team.”
Sangha made 152 against Tasmania in his first game, which assumed memorable proportions when SA conjured a run out from the last ball of the game to seal a narrow victory in Hobart. Another century followed against Queensland in the last regular season match, before Sangha’s date with destiny in the final.
Like Konstas, six years his junior, Sangha now faces the challenge of consistency. Turning this season’s 704 runs in six games to 1000 runs in 10 games next season would go a long way towards securing the Baggy Green cap that had once looked inevitable.
“This has been the best decision ever to come here,” he said.
“One of the boys joked the other day that it’s the 15-minute city so you’re not far away from anything.
“We catch up off the field quite a lot, and so a lot of the guys being from interstate don’t have that family and friends support network you might have at home, so we make Adelaide our home and we make our cricket friends and teammates our family.”
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