Dimuth Karunaratne to feature for Yorkshire in County Championship

Sri Lankan Test captain and veteran opener Dimuth Karunaratne has signed with Yorkshire for the forthcoming county championship fixtures.

Karunaratne will represent Yorkshire in three county championship fixtures. He will make his debut for the county on Thursday (April 21) against Northamptonshire, which also happens to be his 34th birthday.

His next two county fixtures will be against Kent (at Headingley) and Essex at Chelmsford.

Karunaratne is currently ranked No.6 in the world as far as leading Test batters are concerned. In 76 Test matches, the southpaw has racked up 5620 runs at an average of under 40 with the help of 14 hundreds.

He scored a brilliant hundred against a world-class Indian attack during last month's pink-ball Test at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru.

The signing of Karunaratne is quite a steal for Yorkshire, and no wonder Darren Gough, the county's interim managing director, is chuffed to bits with the latest acquisition.

Following his signing, 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."

Gough further added that the presence of an international star in the dressing room would only benefit young, budding cricketers. He is confident that Karunaratne will contribute with the bat and will enjoy his stay at Yorkshire.

"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," Gough added.

Thanks to a six-wicket win over Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, have gotten off to a brilliant start to their 2022 County Championship campaign. They will look to continue the momentum in the forthcoming fixtures.