Bygones: Kumar Sangakkara joins Headingley legends as century club becomes closed shop

We think back to the 1930s, when Don Bradman made 334 against England, the then highest individual score in Test cricket.

We recall Hedley Verity’s 
10-10 during the same decade, the Yorkshire spin bowler routing Notts with what remain the best bowling figures in first-class history.

And we remember Geoffrey Boycott’s historic 100th first-class hundred during the Centenary Ashes Test of 1977, the 40th anniversary of which will be celebrated in August.

The list of landmarks goes on and on.

Last week, Kumar Sangakkara became the latest to write his name into Headingley legend by recording his own 100th hundred at the Leeds ground.

Unlike Boycott, one of just 25 men to have scored 100 first-class centuries (and one of just six, incidentally, along with Yorkshire’s Herbert Sutcliffe, to have scored more than 150), Sangakkara’s tally combines first-class and one-day hundreds.

The Sri Lankan’s 39th one-day century, to go with 61 at first-class level, helped Surrey knock Yorkshire out of the Royal London Cup, and it was a reminder, were any required, of his sublime skill in his last year as a professional cricketer at the age of 39.

For the record, Sangakkara is the 37th man to have scored 100 hundreds in all cricket combined (including Twenty20, in which his highest score is 94).

Another member of this club is Darren Lehmann, the former Yorkshire batsman, whose 82 first-class centuries were complemented by 19 in one-day cricket.

As a flavour of those who could potentially gain entry into this club themselves, Marcus Trescothick has made 94 hundreds in all cricket, Shivnarine Chanderpaul 88 and Alastair Cook 71.

But with so much one-day cricket played nowadays, in which there is clearly less time available for a batsman to reach three figures, it is a club unlikely to be swelled to any significant extent in the coming years.

As for the 100 first-class hundreds club, it can safely be assumed that this will now remain a closed shop for eternity.

Back in Boycott’s day, for instance, there was predominantly only first-class cricket and plenty of it, too, whereas there is simply not the volume of games now available to players.

The County Championship has been cut to the point where the fixture list is best viewed through a magnifying glass, while Twenty20 has taken over in the way that the lowest common denominator invariably prevails in all walks of life.

For the romantics, there are only the history books left to detail the deeds of such giants of the game as Jack Hobbs, who scored a record 197 hundreds, and Bradman, who freakishly averaged one every three innings.

The last man to score 100 first-class centuries was Mark Ramprakash, who also reached the milestone at Headingley.

Playing for Surrey against Yorkshire in 2008, he hit 112 not out at a ground where he also made his maiden first-class hundred in 1989.

Ramprakash, who ended his career with 114 first-class hundreds at an average of 53, and 131 centuries in all cricket, was one of the greatest players of his generation.

But, rather like Graeme Hick, whose tally of 178 hundreds in all cricket is the second-highest number behind Hobbs, he was sadly unfulfilled at international level, where his intensity was said to have counted against him.

Some even felt that this tendency resurfaced as Ramprakash chased his 100th century.

It took him 11 innings to advance from his 99th to his 100th hundred, and he failed to pass 50 during that time.

However, Ramprakash attributed the long wait to the loss of his favourite bat.

“After scoring the 99th, I broke the bat I’d been using for the past two years,” he said after his Headingley innings, adding that: “I’ve used five bats since and I’ve not played that well”.

Ramprakash’s wait was the 20th longest of the 25 instances in this regard.

Boycott moved from 99 to 100 hundreds in one innings, as did Bradman, while Sutcliffe required two innings and Len Hutton, the only other Yorkshire member of this exclusive set, five innings.

Slower than Ramprakash were Dennis Amiss (16 innings), Andy Sandham (21), John Edrich (22), Wally Hammond (24) and Tom Hayward (47).

When Ramprakash reached his own milestone, the Yorkshire crowd gave him a rousing ovation, even though he did douse their side’s victory hopes as the game petered out.

In the following year’s Wisden, Nasser Hussain paid tribute to Ramprakash’s remarkable achievement.

As his former captain at Test level, Hussain knew him better than most and offered this forthright assessment of a cricketing enigma.

“Ramprakash could have been as good as Kevin Pietersen or Ricky Ponting; he had that much ability,” wrote Hussain. “He was not soft, but he could not crack the game mentally at the highest level as the greatest players do.

“He just wanted it too much, if that was possible.

“Ramps is a great first-class player, not a great England player, but I cannot criticise someone who made playing for England too important, because I have a great deal more respect for such people than wasters who could not care less about succeeding or failing at the highest level.

“Ramps rushed to 99 first-class centuries at an early stage of the 2008 season, but then had quite a wait.

“Was that a return to the old intense days of feeling the pressure when a big moment was imminent?”

According to the man himself, the answer was an emphatic “no”.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph in August, 2008, Ramprakash insisted: “For me, it was an exciting time to be on 99 hundreds but in the media it became an issue.

“There are people who would love me to say now that I had been putting myself under pressure, and struggling to cope, but that is not the case and I have been annoyed that experienced observers of the game have wanted me to fit into a certain image.”

On his 100th hundred, Ramprakash added: “Now I have had a bit of time to reflect on it, I realise it is a huge achievement.

“Okay, I may have taken 381 more innings to reach the milestone than Don Bradman, but then again he was a one-off.

“My heroes were Dennis Amiss, Viv Richards and Graham Gooch and now I’m on the same list as them.

“I’ll take that.”