Cricket: Dimuth Karunaratne to retire after his 100th Test appearance

Former captain and current opener Dimuth Karunaratne has hinted that the upcoming second Test match against Australia which begins on Thursday (6) at Galle, will be his last.

Karunaratne, who will be playing his 100th Test match, has indicated retirement prior to making it official that the second Test match against the touring Australians will be the swansong to his career in the longest format.

With Sri Lanka set to play only two Tests up until mid-2026, Karunaratne, now 36, has finally made the decision to call it a day, following his recent struggle with the bat.

The former St. Joseph’s College opener, who made his Test debut in November 2012 against New Zealand at Galle, will play his 100th and final game at the same venue.

“After the first Test against Australia ended, I told Sri Lanka Cricket that the next Test would be my last,” Karunaratne was quoted as saying to espncricinfo.com.

In 99 Tests and 189 innings, Karunaratne has made 7172 runs with the higest score of 244 against Bangladesh in April 2021 at Pallekele.

He has 16 hundreds and 39 fifties under his belt in Tests and averages 39.40, while in his 50 One Day International appearances, Karunaratne has scored 1316 runs with a century and 11 fifties.

In First Class, Karunaratne has made 216 appearances and has made a total of 15777 runs with 47 hundreds and 73 fifties at an average of 44.94.

He becomes Sri Lanka’s seventh cricketer to play 100 Tests after Sanath Jayasuriya, Muthiah Muralidaran, Chaminda Vaas, Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and former schoolmate Angelo Mathews.

Karunaratne, a Test specialist, earlier indicated that he aims to reach 10,000 Test runs but following his bad patch from 2017 to 2019, his hopes were diminished with the lesser number of Tests Sri Lanka gets to play comparing to other nations.

“I would have loved to make it to a World Test Championship final and experience that feeling of being in a final. We were close twice, but it never happened,” Karunaratne told espncricinfo.com. of his regret through 13-year Test career, had he any.

Karunaratne captained Sri Lanka in 30 Tests, winning 12 and losing an equal number while ending six in draws, to enjoy a winning percentage of 41.85.

Under Karunaratne’s captaincy, Sri Lanka recorded one of its greatest wins against South Africa in South Africa with a clean sweep of 2-0.

He also captain Sri Lanka in the ICC ODI World Cup in 2019 held in England, but has not played a single T20 match for the country.

Currently based in Melbourne, Australia, Karunaratne has plans to pursue a career in cricket coaching.