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Dimuth Karunaratne (left) batting with Dhananjaya de Silva against Pakistan at Galle last year
By Sa’adi Thawfeeq
Dimuth Karunaratne who has indicated to the national selectors that he wants to step down from the Sri Lanka Test captaincy at the end of the two-Test series against Ireland at home next month, said that the player whom he would personally like to see succeed him is Dhananjaya de Silva (popularly known as DDS).
“The main reason for resigning is to make way for a new captain to take over at the start of a new cycle of the Test Championship. Also, after two Tests against Ireland we have another two Tests only against Pakistan for the rest of the year. Mentally I am really fed up because the series after Pakistan will be in another five months,” Karunaratne told Daily FT in an exclusive interview.
“After going through such a period of inactivity in Tests it is difficult to keep your concentration levels up when you are a batsman. Normally, when I score a fifty I convert it into a big hundred, I was not able to do that in the recent tour of New Zealand (Sri Lanka were playing a Test series after an eight-month break). I noticed my concentration levels had gone down. I want to focus on my batting. I don’t have a problem when we play Test matches regularly, I enjoy the captaincy as well as my batting, but when you come back after a long break it is difficult to focus on the captaincy as well as the batting. I personally feel that I am not quite there in my batting.”
When asked who is most suitable for the Test captaincy job, Karunaratne replied: “Personally I would like it if Dhananjaya de Silva comes as captain. He is a player who can take on responsibility. He has shown that he can perform well in the Test format. He has already scored nine Test hundreds and he is an established player. He is also an all-rounder where at any time he can bat and bowl and he is a good fielder as well. He looks like the ideal choice. He showed when he captained in one match against Pakistan (at Galle 2022) that he is made of captaincy material. The decisions he makes are different from mine. Some decisions he makes can go right and some wrong but with experience he will learn. We also made mistakes initially as captain, but as we go along you come to realise how to balance aggression with defence. He will learn that through experience. I don't know what decision the selectors and Sri Lanka Cricket will take.”
“The reason why I want to step down is I think it is the right time for a new captain to take over because he can get the assistance from me and players like Angelo (Mathew) and (Dinesh) Chandimal who can guide him, so that by the time we retire he will be able to on his own, stand on his feet. If a player is handed the captaincy without any senior players around him it will be like throwing him into the deep end. I remember when Angelo took over the captaincy Mahela (Jayawardene), Sanga (Kumar Sangakkara) and (Tillakaratne) Dilshan gave him a lot of support. That’s why he was able to captain successfully.” The two players who have been the biggest influence in Karunaratne’s career are Mahela Jayawardene as captain and South African opener Graeme Smith as a batsman.
“I was groomed under Mahela and have followed him a lot, the decisions he took according to situations. Mahela had a lot of experienced players around to support him like Sanga, Dilshan, Murali (Muttiah Muralitharan). I didn’t have such a big cushion when I took over as captain. I got a young set of players and only a few with experience were around. Some of the decisions which Mahela took I liked. He was my idol as captain. For most part of my captaincy I followed his style.”
“As a player I followed Graeme Smith for a long time. His style and the way he played. He was a left-handed opener and I followed him as a role model for some time. When I matured, I watched other batsmen and I took certain things out of them that were beneficial to my game. If you take patience it was (Cheteshwar) Pujara, stroke wise Shikhar Dhawan. As a Test player patience is very important, that’s why I watched Pujara, how he built his innings and how he maintained his patience, Dhawan I watched for his off side play. Even from the youngsters from my team I try to see whether I can learn anything from them. Collectively I gathered this little information and it has helped in my success from 2017 till today.”
Reflecting on some of his memorable moments as captain Karunaratne ranks the 2-0 win in South Africa in 2019 as the pinnacle of his achievements as captain. No other Asian country has won a Test series in South Africa.
“Then there is the series against the West Indies (nil –all) and the win in Bangladesh which we should have won 2-0 but had to settle for a 1-0 win because the first Test was played on a flat wicket. I look mostly at the series I have won abroad which is more important to me than winning a series at home.”
Some of Karunaratne’s best knocks as captain was scoring 107 (out of 208) against India at Bangalore in 2022, 103 against South Africa at the Wanderers, Johannesburg in 2021 and, 122 against New Zealand at Galle in 2019 where Sri Lanka chased 268 and won. “If you take my contributions to the team, I have performed best when I was captain.”
As captain Karunaratne averages 47.70 (2242 runs) from 26 Tests with six centuries and as a player averages 36.58 (3988 runs) from 58 Tests with eight centuries.
With 84 Tests under his belt since making his debut in 2012, Karunaratne said: “My first target is to play 100 Test matches. I would like to have continued as captain if we had a series of Test matches but according to the schedule that Sri Lanka has, it will be somewhere in 2027 that I will be able to achieve that. I have to play another 3½ to 4 years to reach that target. It’s a long period to play another 16 Tests. From there onwards depending on my fitness levels, if I am performing consistently I hope to continue. I think I can play until I am 38 (Karunaratne turns 35 on 21 April). As long as I am performing and enjoying my cricket I will keep playing. The day I don’t enjoy it, I will retire.”
