Latest News
Karunaratne toils his way to a place among Sri Lanka’s greats

Since the start of 2015, no Test opener has scored as many runs as Dimuth Karunaratne. He has 15 hundred, which is the equal highest among openers. He has struck 34 fifties, easily the best – that tally in some senses making him the most consistent opener to be continuously active through the last ten years. Over the course of this, he has also made the ICC Test XI three times, which no other opener has managed.
This week, as he plays his 100th Test, there is reason to give the man his flowers, because when else was cricket going to find the time? His is a career that has floated on the fringes of the sport’s consciousness. You can still make a serious name for yourself as a Test opener in this age, but you have to crash a lot of boundaries to get that kind of attention, and ideally your country belongs to one of cricket’s bigger economies. Grinding out half-centuries on dustbowls, hunkering down for the new-ball spells, manipulating spin so you’re tracking at roughly three runs an over without risks – these are all nice things to be good at. But as far as the modern cricket ecosystem goes, this is like saying you’re the world’s top air-conditioner repair mechanic. Other people are doing way more glamorous things.
For much of Karunaratne’s career, opening has been especially difficult. Since the start of 2015, men’s openers around the world have averaged 33.71 – significantly lower than they did in the aughts (3.17), and less than in the nineties ( 35.50, and eighties (34.76). You were always at the greatest risk of falling to the swinging and seaming ball as an opening batter, but in the last 10 years of Test batting, fresh terrors have snuck into nightmares, with the wisdom that spinners gain more bite out of a hard new seam taking hold stronger than it ever has before. In the 2020s, a 140+kph quick and an experienced finger spinner sharing the new ball is a pretty standard challenge for an opener, especially in Sri Lanka, where new balls can swing through humid air almost as well as they can explode off dry surfaces. Take away Karunaratne’s runs, and openers have averaged 33.6 on the island since 2015.
There are also few who have lit so steady a fire for Sri Lanka’s place in the Test world. This is, after all, a country that has let its Test-match win-loss ratio slip from 1.31 between 2005 and end of 2014, to 0.81 since the start of 2015. Much of this has been about Sri Lanka’s failure to replace great players. There are no spinners to rival Muthiah Muralidaran and Rangana Herath, no seamers to match Chaminda Vaas or Lasith Malinga, no top-order batters that are on the level of Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and Aravinda de Silva. But when it comes to openers, there is a case to be heard. Sanath Jayasuriya and Tilakaratne Dilshan did it with more verve, and Marvan Atapattu was more technically correct. But none of them did it as prolifically as Karunaratne, or scored anywhere near his 7079 runs at the top of the order.
With most other positions in the XI, you can look back to the Lankan men’s team of the late aughts and early 2010s – the golden generation – and mostly conclude that Sri Lanka do not produce cricketers of the same quality. Karunaratne gives you reason to pause.
And at no point, by the way, was he ever Sri Lanka’s golden boy. Where it had been suggested of others that they were the next great Sri Lanka batter, Karunaratne was ever the jobbing opener, and rarely believed to be deserving of the care that batters marked out for stardom tend to receive from coaches and staff, though he has outlasted virtually all of them. Karunaratne’s has been a short leash, and he’s got the struggling thirties, and the dirty half-centuries to prove it. No one will call it a pretty career. But fifties didn’t need to be pretty – they just needed to be fifties. And Karunaratne was adept at providing them. Those prods outside off stump, those strong lbw shouts, and inside edges into pad were all in strong supply. But so were Karunaratne’s runs.
There is an obvious skew to his record. He is exceptionally good against spin, which explains why 81% of his hundreds have come in Asia, though he’s also got hundreds in South Africa and New Zealand.
If Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin presented the greatest spin-challenging of this last era, then few batters have denied them as effectively, with Karunaratne hitting hundreds at the SSC in 2017 1nd Bengalaru in 2022. These were classic Karunaratne innings, in that he obviously scratched his way through portions of them, rarely struck the kinds of authoritative boundaries that suggested he was dominating the bowling, and yet he found ways to avoid getting out, while pinching another 10 runs. He has added a few new shots, and refined his defence, but this, essentially, has been his mode of operation for 12 years. There is also a strikingly ego-free quality here. For bowlers, beating a batter’s edge is a small victory; for Karunaratne, it is an opportunity to face the next ball.
It is a career worth celebrating all the more, for it being in its last days, almost inescapably. Karunaratne has not said anything about retirement yet, but the signs are there. He averaged 29.66 across 2024, and was terrorised by Kagiso Rabada in South Africa, just as he is again being hounded by Mitchell Starc – a bowler who has now dismissed him nine times in Tests. But his own performance is almost irrelevant. Even if Karunaratne throws off a career’s worth of precedent and clubs 100-ball double-centuries in his next Test encounters, Sri Lanka will only still be playing four Tests in 2025. Their next World Test Championship schedule will still feel sparse.
If a little navel-gazing is permitted, you do have to wonder how many more Sri Lanka cricketers will get to 100 Tests. Another Sri Lanka opening batter? This could be a last chance to see.
Karunaratne is the seventh Sri Lanka cricketer to this milestone, to follow Jayasuriya, Muralidaran, Vaas, Sangakkara, Jayawardene, and Angelo Mathews. He is probably the least-celebrated of that crowd. But no one could say he does not deserve his place among them. Others have had the benefit of hype, legend, and aura. Karunaratne’s only medium has always been hard, pragmatic runs.
[Cricinfo]
Latest News
Hamas releases three Israeli hostages in Gaza, after fears over ceasefire

Hamas has released three Israeli hostages, after days of fears over the Gaza ceasefire.
The freed hostages are Israeli – Russian Alexander Troufanov, Israeli – Argentine Yair Horn and Israeli – American Sagui Dekel-Chen.
Israel is releasing 369 Palestinian prisoners in return, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office- some are now arriving in the West Bank.
Latest News
Grant Fisher smashes world indoor 5000m record in Boston

Less than a week after he took apart the world indoor 3000m record in New York, USA’s Grant Fisher added another world indoor record* to his tally, this time over 5000m at the BU David Hemery Valentine International in Boston on Friday (14).
The double Olympic bronze medallist dropped Jimmy Gressier just after the half way point and continued to extend his lead throughout the second half. After passing 3000m in 7:39.16 – a comfortable 16 seconds outside the world indoor record of 7:22.91 he clocked last Saturday – Fisher continued to churn out sub-31-second laps.
After covering the final 400m in 59.36 seconds, Fisher charged through the line in 12:44.09, a five-second improvement on the previous world indoor record of 12:49.60 set by Kenenisa Bekele in 2004.
Gressier held on for second place in 12:54.92, a European indoor record and outright French record.
[*Subject to the usual ratification procedure]
[World Athletics]
Latest News
Ghosh, Ahuja script stunning comeback as RCB complete WPL’s biggest chase

A run-fest that produced the highest aggregate as well as the highest successful chase in the WPL ended with defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru chasing down 202 in a canter in Vadodara.
Richa Gosh who was dropped first ball, showed there was more to her game than just brute force. Her 23-ball half-century injected momentum into RCB’s chase after Ellyse Perry’s dismissal for 57 left them needing 93 off 46 balls. Ghosh’s unbeaten, 26-ball 64 included a stunning takedown of Gujarat Giants captain Ashleigh Gardner in a 23-run 16th over to turn the game on its head.
Ghosh was supported by the diminutive left-hander Kanika Ahunja who scored an unbeaten 13-ball 30. Their unbroken fifth-wicket stand of 93 off just 37 balls completed a sensational RCB turnaround, consigning Gardner’s scarcely believable 37-ball 79 not out from earlier in the evening to second best.
Renuka Singh struggled for accuracy in her first two overs, but her first attempt at bowling stump-to-stump rather than searching for devious inswing led to Laura Wolvaardt being bowled for 6 in the fifth over. D Hemalatha came in at N0. 3 for Giants rather than Harleen Deol, and they were two down when she sliced the offspinner Ahuja to point. Giants were 41 for 2 in the seventh.
Beth Mooney shifted gears in the 10th over after she successfully overturned an lbw appeal through DRS off legspinner Georgia Wareham, whome she hit for three back-to-back fours while bringing up a 37-ball half-century. Mooney then stepped out and lofted legspinner Prema Rawat inside-out to the extra-cover boundary, but fell in the same over when she picked out Smriti Mandhana at midwicket for 56.
That brought in Deandra Dottin and she took just four balls to announce herself. She first thumped Kim Garth over mid-off and then played a neat little glide past the keeper to the deep third boundary.
At the other end, Gardner continued from where she had left off at the Women’s Ashes earlier in the month by taking toll of Rawat’s inexperience and hitting her for three consecutive sixes. After hitting the first two over long-off and long-on, she pummelled the half-tracker that followed over deep backward square leg.
Gardner was able to sustain this momentum against Wareham in the following over when she hit her for back-to-back fours. The Dottin-Gardner partnership had surged to 63 off 26 balls when Perry dropped a set Dottin at long-on, but it wouldn’t cost RCB much as she fell four balls later.
Gardner ended the innings in a blaze, taking down the teenaged seamer VJ Joshita as Giants hit 49 off the last three overs. Garner’s innings was studded with three fours and eight sixes.
Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women 202 for 4 in 18.3 overs (Richa Ghosh 64*, Ellyse Perry 57, Raghvi Bist 25, Kanika Ahuja 30*; Ashleigh Gardner 2-33) beat Gujarat Giants Women 201 for 5 in 20 overs (Ashleigh Gardner 79, Mooney 56, Deandra Dottin 25; Renuka Singh 2-25) by six wickets
[Cricinfo]
-
News7 days ago
SLAS senior to be HC in London, several new dpl appointments
-
Features7 days ago
Ken Balendra’s impact on John Keells
-
Life style7 days ago
Polished to Perfection
-
Midweek Review4 days ago
How USAID influenced Sri Lanka
-
Features7 days ago
The Ceylon Journal’s Second Issue: A Captivating Dive into Sri Lanka’s Rich History and Culture
-
Editorial7 days ago
Cat out of the bag
-
Opinion7 days ago
The Birth of the Harry Jayawardena Empire (1977)
-
Editorial5 days ago
Needed: ‘Ministry of Excuses’