Sangakkara achieved the feat in his 224th innings, during Sri Lanka’s second Test with New Zealand in Wellington on Saturday.
India’s Sachin Tendulkar and Australia’s Ricky Ponting took 247 knocks to pass the 12,000 mark, a milestone also reached by South Africa’s Jacques Kallis and India’s Rahul Dravid.
Sangakkara has notched 37 hundreds and 51 fifties in his 130 Tests to date at an average of 58.38, with a highest score of 319 against Bangladesh in Chittagong earlier this year.
The 37-year-old posted scores of six and one during Sri Lanka’s eight-wicket defeat to New Zealand in the first Test in Christchurch, leaving him five runs shy of 12,000 heading into the clash at Basin Reserve.
And Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews says the veteran - who had moved to 12,028 Test runs by stumps in Wellington after scoring an unbeaten 33 - was grafting feverishly in the nets prior to the second Test to ensure he achieved his landmark.
“When he fails, it's a coach's nightmare,” said Mathews. “You have to throw balls to him for hours and hours. He's been working really hard in the nets and he's desperate to go out there and get runs."
Sangakkara became only the fourth player to score 13,000 runs in ODI cricket – after Tendulkar, Ponting and countryman Sanath Jayasuriya – during Sri Lanka’s series win over England last month.
The right-hander, who will retire from one-day cricket after the 2015 World Cup in Australia in New Zealand, has accrued 20 hundreds and 91 half-centuries in his 390 ODIs.
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