De Silva basks in sun and love of the crowd

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Some of the hair has gone, as has some of the dash, but Aravinda de Silva has lost none of his appeal to the English cricketing public and as the diminutive Sri Lanka batsman walked off the ground after his last innings there he was given a rapturous ovation.

And he responded by pausing, then in a moving gesture pirouetting gently with his bat in front of him, in a farewell salute to the fans. "It was a moving moment for me," he said later. "I have really enjoyed playing cricket in England, I feel the public is very interested in the game and I felt I should salute a knowledgeable crowd."

It is 18 months since he last played a Test after falling from selectorial favour through his fitness, or rather lack of it, and being told he was too fat. Last evening he said he had lost more than a stone and a half. When a comfortably built reporter from a national newspaper asked if it had been a hard struggle de Silva quickly countered: "Why do you want to follow the same regime?"

But he was serious about his batting. "I thought that I would not be playing Test cricket anywhere again, let alone here in England, my second home. It was a pleasant surprise to me when I was picked."

He spent a happy summer with Kent in 1995, winning friends – eventually. First he had to suffer a chill spring that year and a lean start to his county career, and while he shivered in four sweaters down at third man disappointed county members sent the then captain Mark Benson angry letters questioning the overseas signing.

De Silva's response was to say: "Give me sunshine and I will get you the runs." He duly did as well, 1,700 in the championship and a fine ton in the Benson & Hedges Cup final, an innings which made him the first player from the losing side to win the Gold Award. Yesterday he played to an exalted audience, Sri Lanka's president watched 20 minutes of his patient innings before lunch, as he passed 6,000 runs in this his 90th Test.

Spookily when he was out, strangled down the leg side, he had equalled his best First Class score at Lord's, made for Kent against Middlesex in 1995; he had done his job, using his experience of English conditions to maintain the middle order momentum and having helped Sri Lanka to a mountainous total he effectively lost any further opportunity of reaching three figures on the ground. But it was still a fitting farewell.