Fastest Sri Lankan Batters To Smash 4 Test Centuries

Fastest Sri Lankan batters to get to 4 Test centuries (x.com)

Sri Lanka’s rich batting history boasts a proud lineage of exceptional Test cricketers. Many of those players managed to demonstrate their potential quite early in their careers itself by decorating their beginnings with rich and appealing Test centuries.

Celebrating the rise of young emerging talent Kamindu Mendis, we take a look at four Sri Lankan batters in Test history who took the least number of innings to get to four hundreds.

4. Duleep Mendis – 26 innings

Former Sri Lankan captain Duleep Mendis shaped four Test centuries and eight additional fifty-plus scores in his 24-match career. Notably, Mendis listed each of his four tons within the first 26 innings of his Test career to become one of the quickest Sri Lankan batters to get to the landmark figure.

Having made his Test debut in 1982, Duleep Mendis belted his maiden format century in Chennai during Sri Lanka’s tour of India later that same year. Scoring 105 runs from just 123 balls in the first innings of the one-off Test, Mendis registered another 105 in the second to plunder twin tons in the same game and fittingly bagged the ‘Player of the Match’ award. Duleep’s twin batting masterclasses helped Sri Lanka secure their first drawn series in history.

3. Dhananjaya de Silva – 23 innings

Dhananjaya de Silva – 23 innings (x.com)

Active Sri Lankan skipper Dhananjaya de Silva struck his first four centuries within the first 23 innings of his career against the likes of Australia and India on testing conditions. The elegant right-handed batter made his Test debut in July 2016 against Australia, and listed his maiden century a couple of matches later in the same series by scoring an artistic 129 from 280 balls. His innings lifted Sri Lanka from a precarious 26-5 to 237-6 by the time of his dismissal to Nathan Lyon

A couple of months later, Dhananjaya smeared 127 against Zimbabwe at Harare in another match-winning cause for Sri Lanka. In December 2017 against India in Delhi, the cricketer punched out an imperial 119 to deny the hosts a chance to seal the series 2-0. He registered his second successive ton the following month by smacking a career-best 173 in Chattogram to get to four Test hundreds.

Since then, Dhananjaya de Silva has tripled his century tally as he currently sits on a pile of nearly 4,000 runs with 12 tons and 17 fifties as of September 2024.

2. Michael Vandort – 21 innings

Michael Vandort – 21 innings (x.com)

Michael Vandort registered each of his four Test centuries in the first 21 innings of his career. In an overall career spanning 20 matches and 33 innings between seven years (2001 to 2008), Vandort minted 1,144 runs with four tons and as many as half-centuries at an average of 36.90. He accumulated two of those hundreds against Bangladesh, both at Colombo and in match-winning causes in 2002 and 2007 respectively.

One of the most defining moments of Vandort’s career came against England at Edgbaston in May 2006, when he pumped out 105 runs by batting for nearly seven hours while countering the likes of Andrew Flintoff, Matthew Hoggard and Liam Plunkett.

1. Kamindu Mendis – 11 innings

Kamindu Mendis – 11 innings (x.com)

Rising Sri Lankan star Kamindu Mendis seems to be reshaping modern-day standards for batting the world over. Ever since he made his Test debut against Australia at Galle in July 2022, Mendis has notched up eight fifty-plus scores in just 11 innings for Sri Lanka. Moreover, the dazzling all-rounder managed to convert four of those scores into appealing centuries.

Notably, Kamindus Mendis tonked each of those four hundreds since March 2024 when he belted scores of 102 and 164 in a single Test match against Bangladesh at the Sylhet Stadium. He replicated his efforts on much tougher conditions at Manchester’s Old Trafford against the Englishmen, where his fighting 113 in the second-innings saved Sri Lanka from a huge collapse. In September against New Zealand, the young batting prodigy logged his fourth Test ton and his first in familiar home conditions at Galle.

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