Sangakkara’s Picture of An Innings bests his Artistic Shadow

There is not much to be said of his mastery that has not been said before, and many times. But who is so mean of spirit that familiarity with this kind of skill does not bring joy? Even the Middlesex bowlers, one imagines, enjoyed the contest. They did not bowl badly. But they found a great batsman with his circus animals all on show.

Will elegance suffice as a definition? Not really, because elegance only goes so far. It cannot by itself bring 12,400 runs in Test cricket at an average, 57, that constitutes one of his strongest claims to immortality.

Jacques Kallis, for instance, is one of only four men to have plundered more Test runs. Yet nobody of sound mind ever greeted daybreak by pulling back the curtains and declaring: “Our cup runneth over, for Kallis bats today.” Such folk may exist but they are usually to be found muttering to themselves on buses. So clearly style, no less than statistical achievement, counts for something in any estimation of greatness. There are choices to be made in watching cricket, as well as playing it, and what we most admire reflects our temperament as it does a cricketer’s. Perhaps we can say that if we batted in our dreams like Sangakkara we would never want to wake up.

He hit the first ball he received, from James Franklin, to the cover boundary. But it was not a belligerent start. Watchful, happy to give the first hour to the bowlers who took three Surrey wickets for 83 after Middlesex had told them to bat, Sangakkara knew that he had all day to mould the innings, and he is a patient man.

In the early stages of their partnership, which raised the score by 114, Dominic Sibley was the more expansive. Missed at first slip by Adam Voges on 22, Sibley had just brought up his half-century, with the scent of another 50 runs in his nostrils, when Voges accepted a catch that gave Tom Helm a compensatory wicket.

 A run-out attempt was one of the few times when Sangakkara looked in any sort of trouble against Middlesex yesterdayPHILIP BROWN/GETTY IMAGES

By now Sangakkara had begun to display his gems, as might a jeweller. He drove Toby Roland-Jones through cover and then, with a stroke that sang a melody of summers past, flicked the bowler to the pickets at mid-wicket. Rapture! Then he went down the ground, to punish Franklin.

The sun came out. The bowlers toiled. They ran in hard. He saw them clear. Rain stopped play. He carried on. Enter Rayner. First bounce four. Hard lines, Ollie! Two short balls. Two pulls. Two sixes. His century arrived, from 132 balls. We stood in gratitude.

Ben Foakes, one of the coming men of English cricket, was caught behind shortly before the rain returned, seriously this time. If Surrey bat deep into the second day, and then bowl as they have been doing, Middlesex will have to play like the champions they are to resist them. It should be a very good match. These sides meet, for the first time in years, on level ground.

Back to the portrait. Has any player, tongues wagged throughout the day, ever walked past a tribute to himself in the famous pavilion while he was still an active cricketer? Not many. Alec Stewart, who was on the Surrey balcony yesterday, and Mike Atherton were painted in 2000, while they were still Test performers. Seven years later Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan joined the roll call of greats.

Surrey resume this morning on 265, with five wickets intact. Middlesex will try to hurry things along. Standing in their way is one of the greatest cricketers. All glory, laud and honour, Kumar Sangakkara.