Like a Kandyan dancer

All through the middle overs, England's offspinners tried to get Kumar Sangakkara out of his castle in the crease. So slow, and well-flighted were their deliveries, the ball was almost pleading with each revolution: "Come out of your ground, Sanga." "Dance down to me, Sanga." He would dance. But it wouldn't be to England's tune. Eyes on every puff of dust, brain whirring as the ball bounced and gripped, Sangakkara only had ears for the pitch. On his last ODI trip to his hometown, 12 watchful balls into his innings, hands and feet began to move to its beat.

To watch Sangakkara now, at 37, is to see a rare intersection of skill, strength and wiles. Many see their reflexes go or their eyesight weaken in their mid-thirties, and trim back their range of strokes to suit. Others are burned out by the incessant shoves and tugs of top-level cricket; each new battle making the mind a little staler.

Sangakkara has driven his body to stay at its peak, but his mind is as sharp as ever, having absorbed more than most in 13 years of international cricket. Wednesday's Pallekele surface was an oddity for a Sri Lankan ODI surface. It was dry but quick; spin-friendly but with plenty of carry. England had almost an ideal attack to get Sangakkara out on that pitch, with three spinners to take the ball away, and three hit-the-deck quicks pushing the ball across him.

Still, at no stage did he appear wrong-footed by any of this. His pull shots were so precise, they could have come sealed and sterilised from a lab. The angles he worked with were so pinpoint, he could have been working with a laser grid, overlaid on the field. Moeen Ali tossed one up a little higher in the 26th over, and Sangakkara sprang out to wallop him, right above the short extra cover, exactly between the two deep men on the off side.

In between the 10 big shots, Sangakkara's singles and twos were beating out their own rhythm on the pitch, to which the scoreboard ticked along. Hands out, then in, to the beat of ageta beraya drum, just like a Kandyan dancer; foot forward to one ball, then back for the next.

Other batsmen struggled to pinpoint the pace of the pitch, but Sangakkara was in sync. The drive, the cut. An eased single to long on, a muscular clip over midwicket. James Tredwell erred, bowling the third ball of the 18th over too short, and Sangakkara was deep in his crease to capitalise. The over-correction came next ball and the batsman was at the pitch of the delivery before the ball itself had got there.

It is his consistent control over the small moments of each match that makes Sangakkara. Sachin Tendulkar had that bullet-speed back-foot punch. Brian Lara had that beastly cut which was sometimes seared straight, and other times played with backspin. Sangakkara has one look-at-me cover drive, but unlike other modern greats of batting he does not dip into the realm of the impossible. He is just a constant achiever of excellence; always skirting the stratosphere, when more celebrated others had risen above him, and fallen more dramatically.

As he approaches the end of another year in which he has made over 1000 Test and ODI runs, it's difficult to recall a time when Sangakkara was truly out of form. He has passed fifty in his last four matches and barely raised a fuss doing it, because it would now be more of a surprise if he didn't score heavily in a series.

He fell for 91 on Wednesday, hitting the ball perfectly clean, but not quite managing to elude the deep midwicket fielder. It was the second time he has fallen in sight of a hundred in two games, but given the nonchalance with which he now celebrates milestones, he would have been more annoyed at not having seen Sri Lanka's innings through.

Sri Lanka has two more chances to watch Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene bat in ODIs, as long as the rain stays away. It remains to be seen if the team can seal the series in the fifth ODI, but Sangakkara's mastery of the minutiae has at least set them up with what should be a competitive score.