Dimuth on the verge of several batting milestones – by Sunil Thenabadu
Sri Lanka skipper Dimuth Karunaratne will equal the World Record for most consecutive fifties in Test match cricket if he scores a half-century in the first innings of the second Test against West Indies in Galle starting Monday.
Sri Lanka’s Test captain Dimuth Karunaratne has hit a purple stripe this year and the 147 he scored against West Indies in the first Test in Galle this week was his fourth hundred in 2021. The 33-year-old came up with an similarly solid 83 in the second innings as Sri Lanka won by 187 runs with a session to spare.
His feats have seen him accruing 854 runs this year in Test cricket at an average of 77. Only Joe Root and Rohit Sharma have scored more runs in 2021 although they have played more games with the England captain participating in 12 Tests and the Indian star appearing in 11 games assessed to Dimuth’s six Tests.Dimuth is far ahead when comparing the Tests played.
Dimuth has now scored six consecutive half-centuries and a 50 in the second Test starting on Monday will see him equating a World Record shared by six other players. Everton Weeks, Kumar Sangakkara, Andy Flower, Shivnaraine Chanderpaul, Chris Rogers and K.L. Rahul have all scored seven consecutive fifties in Test cricket.
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In the list of most runs in Test cricket for Sri Lanka, Dimuth went past former skipper Arjuna Ranatunga this year and he is currently the ninth highest run scorer. He’s on 5406 runs and if he scores 96 more runs in the second Test, he will knock off three more Sri Lankan greats, Tilan Samaraweera (5462), T.M. Dilshan (5492) and Marvan Atapattu (5502). That will see him sitting at number six among the maximum run scorers for the country.
Dimuth is starved for runs and he wants to finish his career with 10,000 Test runs. Only two other Sri Lankan greats have achieved the milestone. Kumar Sangakkara with 12,400 runs and Mahela Jayawardene with 11,814 runs are the only members of the special 10,000 club.“Scoring 10,000 runs is my desire. I don’t know if I’ll be able to accomplish that, but that’s what I’ve got in my mind. If I can maintain this form, I’ll be able to get close to 10,000 runs. I like to enhance as much as I can, and whenever I finish a match, I’ll go and check where I am on the Sri Lanka run charts, to figure out how many I need to score to pass someone,” Karunaratne explained.
The Sri Lankan captain was Man of the Match as Sri Lanka took a 1-0 lead to retain the Sobers-Tissera Trophy. The win also enabled Sri Lanka to collect 12 points in the ICC Test Championship.
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Sunil Thenabadu
