What's a final fizzle against a career of fireworks?

The two guards of honour and fireworks were unusual, but there was nothing strange about the scoreline Kumar Sangakkara arrived to. Sri Lanka's total has been in single figures in more than a quarter of his 207 walks to the crease at first drop. In a career multi-layered with staggering statistics, gems that shed further light on why he means so much to team and nation are still being discovered. The body of work is like a good book. Every time you look it over, a new delight reveals itself.

His friend Mahela Jayawardene had a better head and nimbler hands on wearing pitches, but Sangakkara has not shirked his duties in the fourth innings either. His average of 41.53 on such occasions is better, for instance, than the fourth-innings averages of Brian Lara or Sachin Tendulkar.

He was tetchy at the top of his knock today, like he is always tetchy. He sped out of the crease to put R Ashwin through midwicket for a first-ball two, and occasionally felt for the ball before the feet were quite there. He was tetchy in Hobart too, chasing 507 to win in 2007. Then, he whipped Brett Lee to the fine-leg fence and began the most monumental fourth-innings charge ever seen in Australia. He has fallen one double-ton short of Don Bradman's 12 now, but he was also wrongly given out on 192 in that innings. He was left stranded on 199 not out another time.

"We had thought he would get a big score today," Dhammika Prasad said of the feeling in the dressing room when Sangakkara strode out to bat. Each of his team-mates will have memories of tough matches he has turned. Even in the last five years, there has been that game-saving double-century in Abu Dhabi, the Lord's 147, and the Kingsmead 108 to set South Africa a target they could not chase.

On Sunday, Sangakkara's first official boundary came when Stuart Binny overdid the tribute by flinging a return throw all the way to the boundary. But when the batsman clipped Ishant Sharma to the square-leg fence, then drove him serenely down the ground soon after, hopes rose in the dressing room and in the stands. Maybe today will be another Sangakkara day.

How could it not be? For so long, it was unheard of for Sangakkara to go through a series without a massive, meaningful score. Hundreds seemed almost impossible to prevent once those first 10 runs was scored. Rare were two modest series in a row. When at the beginning of 2014 he finished with a series average of 33.20 against Pakistan, he worked tirelessly in the nets to rebound in Bangladesh, scoring 499 runs from three innings there. By the end of the year, he had struck 1438 Test runs all up. Having played in five countries, his average for the year was 71.90.

The ball to get him out on Sunday was flighted, dipping and turning away from a length. Sangakkara has defused hundreds, maybe thousands of balls just like this one in his career. He has slammed a few of those over mid off, and pierced plenty through cover as well. Left-handers are weaker against offspin, it is said, but Sangakkara has quelled Saeed Ajmal like no other batsman. Harbhajan Singh and Graeme Swann had no great hold over him either.

Fate chose the saddest exit for him, in a way. Out four times from four to R Ashwin, always edging that spinning ball to slip. In the recent past, Sangakkara has despised being prevailed upon by any bowler, spin or pace. Last year there were whispers Moeen Ali had his number, but after getting out to him cheaply in the first one-dayer, Sangakakra went on to ravage Moeen and England, plundering 454 runs at an average of over 75 in the year-end ODI series at home. Later in December, Trent Boult had him caught at slip twice in a Test. Next match, Sangakkara took Boult apart on a greentop.

Sangakkara left the field with a wave of the blade, but did not linger to soak up the applause. Even at the very end, that familiar dissatisfaction in his innings was writ across his face. But maybe he will go home and think he has not done so bad. He might wake up tomorrow and find there is plenty to be satisfied about.

Because it's not this meagre final stretch that people will remember. It is not the fidgety prods against Ashwin and Yasir Shah that will define him as man and cricketer. After 15 years of affection for his craft and his people, Sangakkara leaves Sri Lanka with a lifetime of memories. It is the golden years we will all talk about. The good times we will hold dear.