Karunaratne to call it quits on his career after 2nd test vs Australia which will coincidentally also be his 100th test.
Karunaratne to retire from Test cricket after making his 100th appearance.
After playing his 100th match this week against Australia in Galle, Dimuth Karunaratne is scheduled to retire from Test cricket.
The decision has been influenced by three considerations. There is hardly any cricket left for a long-format specialist like Karunaratne to concentrate on, as Sri Lanka is only scheduled to play two more Test matches until May 2026. The 36-year-old Karunaratne has also had trouble scoring runs over the last 14 months, averaging 27.05 since 2024 began. This is also the last test for Sri Lanka in this cycle of the World Test Championship.
“It was the right time to go, considering there are three or four younger players who could come in for the next WTC cycle,” Karunaratne told ESPNcricinfo. “Plus, this match was in Galle, where I made my debut, so it will be nice to finish things there.
“After the first Test against Australia ended, I told SLC that the next Test would be my last.”
At the same stadium where he will soon retire, Karunaratne made his Test debut against New Zealand in November 2012. Towards the close of 2014, he achieved his first Test century after being briefly removed from the squad. Since then, he has amassed 15 hundreds while essentially maintaining a spot on the Test team till he became one of its most senior players.
Karunaratne has amassed 7079 runs at an average of 39.99 throughout his 12 years in Test cricket, which is by far the highest Test runs for a Sri Lankan opener. Along with Sanath Jayasuriya, Muthiah Muralidaran, Chaminda Vaas, Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, and Angelo Mathews, he would also become Sri Lanka’s seventh cricketer to reach 100 Test matches.
“Playing 100 Tests is a tough thing to accomplish, especially when you’re an opening batter and you’re doing the dirty work for the team,” Karunaratne told ESPNcricinfo. “If I have regrets, one of them would be not being able to get to 10,000 Test runs. I thought the way that I was going in 2017, 2018 and 2019, that I’d have the chance to get there. But then Covid hit, and Sri Lanka don’t play as many Tests anymore.
“I’d also 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.”