A match-winning century sparked extraordinary scenes in March, capping a surge that propelled Jason Sangha back towards national reckoning
Deivarayan Muthu01-Sep-2025It has been five months since Jason Sangha guided South Australia to the Sheffield Shield title and sent the Karen Rolton Oval into euphoria. But his memories of the win and the celebrations, including the iconic ground invasion, are still so fresh that he was reliving it with Queensland’s Angus Lovell during dinner in Chennai, which is approximately 5000 miles away from Adelaide.Last month, Sangha was part of a group of 12 Australians who had spent in time Chennai and trained at the MRF academy, where they also played a three-day game against former Ranji Trophy champions Saurashtra.”We were talking about the win the other night and talking about how that [revelry] just wouldn’t happen at any other state,” Sangha recalls. “You know, there’s so much passion with the people from South Australia. They love their cricket, they love their AFL, but they love the cricket when the cricket season is on.Related
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“It’s the same in the AFL. Like, when the two AFL teams are playing really well, there’s a really good buzz around the city. And when South Australian cricket is doing well, or if Travis Head or Alex Carey are playing well, there’s a really big buzz around the city for cricket. If I go back home, there’s still people talking about the Shield final and we’re trying to focus on it for next season.”Sangha is gearing up for the season with his new-found ability to bat for long and score big. After chalking up six fifty-plus scores, including three centuries in 12 innings in the 2024-25 Shield, he made a career-best 202 not out off 379 balls in his most recent first-class fixture for Australia A against Sri Lanka A in Darwin in July. Sangha puts his stellar run down to taking emotions out of his game and thinking clearly.”I’m just a lot more level-headed than I probably would have been,” he says. “Whether I’m playing club cricket, if I’m playing state cricket, A-team cricket, even over here [in Chennai], I just want to keep having those good habits, keep being consistent with how I train, how I play, rather than sort of being checked in and checked out or being really intense and then dropping off and not batting for a while.”So it’s just having a more of a level-headed approach, being more consistent, and look, if that leads to higher honours, that’s great. But at the same time, if I’m scoring runs in every game that I’m playing and I’m putting my best foot forward, then I can live with the result.”Jason Sangha’s career has been revived by his move to South Australia•Getty ImagesSangha has certainly strengthened his Test credentials with his recent double-hundred against Sri Lanka A but doesn’t want to look too far ahead.”Yeah, I mean, every kid’s dream is to obviously play for Australia,” Sangha says. “That’s the pinnacle of how good you are as a cricketer – to play for Australia. And no doubt I’d love to do it as well. But I think I’m just really content with where my game is at right now. I’ve probably been trying to sort of figure out a method to have some sort of consistency.”Having batted on different surfaces in Chennai, including red and black soils, Sangha hopes to tap into that experience when he returns to the subcontinent. With some players set to come back to India for an A tour later this year and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to follow in 2027, this trip to Chennai was particularly significant for the Australia hopefuls such as Sangha himself.
“Seeing the guys play here, everything is more square of the wicket,” Sangha says. “They use their sweep shot well, but in Australia the sweep is probably trickier because there’s so much bounce. So, I think those bits of gold.”For our spinners, you’re bowling with the SG ball here rather than the Kookaburra. And I think I can see why, I guess from an Australian coaching point of view, they wanted to bring some younger talent here. Obviously, the 2027 Border-Gavaskar Trophy will be here as well.”The future didn’t look as bright for Sangha when he was de-listed by New South Wales (NSW) at the end of the 2023-24 season. Having been born in Randwick and grown up in Newcastle, all Sangha wanted to do was to play for New South Wales and emulate the likes of Mark Cameron and Burt Cockley.
South Australia gave me a contract and saved my career. So, from then on in, I felt like every game that I played for South Australia, I wanted to do well, and I wanted to repay the organisation
Sangha has had his shares of highs and lows after making his first-class debut for NSW as an 18-year-old, but being dropped off the books of his home state was something he never imagined.He then reset his career with a stint for St Lawrence in the Kent Premier League in the UK and a shift to South Australia, which has become his new home now. So much so that he had locals buying him drinks at a pub in Adelaide after he had delivered a first Shield title to South Australia in 29 years.”I think getting away from Australia [to the UK], to go somewhere new and learn to sort of enjoy the game again [was important],” Sangha says. “I feel like the UK summer put me in a really good stead to come back and play in Australia and also just a change of environment. There’s a lot of guys who when they go off contract, they don’t get another opportunity to play for another state and they have to go and move to play grade cricket and work their way up through the ranks, whereas I was quite lucky.’If I go back home, there’s still people talking about the Shield final’•Getty Images”South Australia gave me a contract and saved my career. So, from then on in, I felt like every game that I played for South Australia, I wanted to do well, and I wanted to repay the organisation. And just to be in some new colours, in a new city, a new environment with some new coaches, yeah, I feel like it’s given me a new chapter.”Sangha delivered a glowing appraisal of Australia’s young talents, including Ollie Peake, who has been tipped to become their next big batter.”These next generation of stars coming through, it’s really good to see that they’re getting opportunities to play at a higher level,” Sangha says. “Ollie made his Big Bash debut last year, he’s playing for Australia A now. I think he’s just a very emotionally mature kid for 18. I came into the first-class system quite young as well, but it probably took me a little bit of time to find my feet and understand my game.”Ollie knows his game really well and it’s quite refreshing to see someone who’s quite young that I can actually learn off as well. So, yeah, I think it’s a lot of guys like him. Harry Dixon, we’ve got here as well and Campbell Kellaway. There’s some really nice, young, talented batters that I think are maturing really nicely.”Sangha is also more mature now and could be an Ashes wildcard, especially if he keeps up his rich form.