Yorkshire have signed Sri Lanka captain Dimuth Karunaratne for the County Championship.
He will be available for three matches – against Northamptonshire, Kent and Essex – before returning to international duty to prepare for the Test series against Bangladesh.
The 33-year-old has scored over 13,000 first-class runs at 46.55 since making his debut in 2008, 5,620 of which have come in 76 Test appearances for Sri Lanka.
Having missed out on the opportunity to represent Hampshire in 2019 due to international commitments, this will be his first experience of county cricket. In five Test appearances on English soil, he has scored 256 runs at 28.44.
He will become the first Sri Lanka player to play for Yorkshire and is the second Sri Lankan to join a county for the 2022 season following Derbyshire’s signing of Suranga Lakmal.
Signing an internationally capped player of Karunaratne’s stature – he is ranked sixth in the ICC’s Test batting rankings – would be a boost for any team but for Yorkshire, his involvement, however brief, could prove invaluable.
Yorkshire’s batting was frail last year, with an overreliance on Adam Lyth at the top of the order, Harry Brook and allrounders Dom Bess and Jordan Thompson overburdened in the middle order, and a fairly lengthy tail.
They were bowled out for under 200 on seven occasions in 2021- including totals of 108, 117 and 73 in their final two matches.
Karunaratne, a veteran of 178 first-class appearances, will add valuable experience to a quite a young batting side while his propensity for big knocks – he has scored 44 centuries and 58 half-centuries in his first-class career – should ease the run-scoring burden on Lyth and Malan.
His three-match stint may tide the club over until the return of Kohler-Cadmore from a concussion injury, depending on his recovery timeline, while also allowing some of the less experienced top-order options like George Hill, who opened the batting with Lyth last season, and Will Fraine to settle into the season.
Interim managing director, Darren Gough, said: “We are delighted that Dimuth will be joining us for the next three Championship games.
“He has proven himself to be an exceptional leader for Sri Lanka and is a tremendous Test match batter. It can only benefit the lads in our changing rooms to have a player of his quality and I’m sure they will all get a lot from it. I’m confident he will contribute runs and enjoy his time at Yorkshire.”
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