Dubai: Sri Lankan opener Dimuth Karunaratne stood like a colossus to crack a career high 196 runs and announce that he wants be a complete Test player.
Starting from his overnight score of 133, Karunaratne carried Sri Lanka from 254 for three to a commanding 461 for seven by dinner on the second day of the second day-night Test match at the Dubai International stadium. “I want to be a complete Test player and I am getting there,” he said.
Karunaratne’s innings was an epitome of concentration and determination. His knock came off 405 balls with 19 boundaries and one six.
During the course of his innings, he went past the 3,000-run mark in his 44th Test match and his previous highest score of 186 against West Indies at Galle in 2015. It was a tragic end to his nine hours and seven minutes stay at the wicket as he missed his double century playing on a Wahab Riaz delivery on to his stumps.
In the first innings of the first Test in Abu Dhabi Test too, he had missed his century by seven runs.
Karunaratne now wants to carry on his form into One Day International cricket too. “I have scored century with red ball, century with pink ball and I’m now looking for a white ball century,” remarked 29-year-old Karunaratne who has only played 17 ODIs and has just one half century.
Karunaratne who made Pakistan toil the full day wanted to do well against Pakistan as his team had a bad series against India. “We had a bad series against India. We want to desperately win this series. We are hungry. We just want to play our best and give our best and win the series,” he said.
Right now he seems to have placed Sri Lanka on course to appease his hunger. He put on 146 runs with his skipper Dinesh Chandimal (62). Chandimal’s wicket was a lucky one for Yasir Shah. His quicker delivery skidded and hit Chandimal’s front pad and was declared leg before. Chandimal refused to refer the decision and replay showed that the ball was missing the stumps.
Though Sri Lanka were playing their first day-night cricket, Karunaratne had played with pink ball in Sri Lanka’s domestic cricket where he had scored a century as well. “I played a first class game in Sri Lanka and got a hundred there. So I had some confidence going into this game although what I played in Colombo was a day game. Here also we played mostly in the day time and only the last session under lights. The first four hours it was nice and smooth but the last two hours were tough. When the new ball gets softer it gets lot more easier,” he revealed.
Karunaratne had added 88 runs for the fifth wicket with Niroshan Dickwella (52).
Dickwella stroked beautifully from the start. He stepped out to Yasir Shah and swung him over mid-wicket for his first boundary, he also played a delectable drive off Mohammad Amir to mid-off. He also reverse swept Shah to show that he has walked in to accelerate the run rate before he inside edged a Mohammad Abbas delivery to wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmad. His knock which came off 53 balls had five boundaries.
Karunaratne also put on 59 runs with an aggressive Dilruwan Perera. Perera flashed at Abbas to get his first boundary and pulled Shah for a boundary and carried on after Karunaratne’s departure. He went on score 58.
To add to Pakistan’s troubles, Amir had to leave the field after bowling only three overs complaining of a shin injury. A desperate skipper Sarfraz had to even try out Asad Shafiq in order to rest his other bowlers.
Scoreboard
Sri Lanka (1st innings) (Overnight: 254-3)
Dimuth Karunaratne b Riaz 196
Dinesh Chandimal lbw b Shah 62
Niroshan Dickwella c S. Ahmed b Abbas 52
Dilruwan Perera b Shah 58
Rangana Herath not out 14
Suranga Lakmal not out 2
Extras (lb-3 nb-5 w-3) 11
Total (for 7 wickets, 147 overs) 461
Fall of wickets: 1-63 K. Silva, 2-131 S. Samarawickreme, 3-136 K. Mendis, 4-282 D. Chandimal, 5-370 N. Dickwella, 6-429 D. Karunaratne, 7-454 D. Perera.
Bowling: Mohammad Amir 19.3 — 5 — 74 — 1 Mohammad Abbas 27 — 7 — 92 — 1 (nb-1) Wahab Riaz 26 — 6 — 62 — 1 (nb-4) Yasir Shah 49.3 — 8 — 172 — 4 Asad Shafiq 11 — 1 — 24 — 0 (w-3) Haris Sohail 14 — 3 — 34 — 0.
Referees Umpire: Richard Kettleborough Umpire: Sundaram Ravi TV umpire: Nigel Llong Match referee: Andy Pycroft
