Sri Lanka’s one-man resistance army is Dimuth Karunaratne.
Dimuth Karunaratne set off for the run that would complete his fourteenth hundred, flicking Jasprit Bumrah towards fine-leg. He kept sprinting, straining his fatigued legs and shoulders while avoiding looking at the ball. The ball appeared destined to nudge the ropes, but he made no attempt to celebrate. His thoughts were on the double that would allow him to keep his strike while avoiding exposing Lasith Embuldeniya to Bumrah. He turned back, paused, and absorbed in the warm ovation of the crown under the aluminium sky, which had yet to break into the twilight, after completing the double.
The Sri Lankan captain was jogging for his team once again. He was the Lankans’ one-man resistance army once more. He made sure that even after a humiliating defeat, his country’s enthusiastic supporters could take something positive from it. Yet again, he has given them hope for a better tomorrow. He has been Sri Lanka’s lone glimmer of hope during the country’s darkest cricketing phase. A sad hero from Sri Lanka’s darkest hours.
Karunaratne’s thump was not ordinary of him. He was ordinarily unfaltering, but there were streaky periods when he couldn’t get the bat on the ball, or when he did, the ball touched the edges. By a stroke of luckiness, he made it through the opening session against Ravi Ashwin. Turning the ball absent from him, into him, keeping it straight, make it slip and shoot, jump and lift—Ashwin was within the disposition for evil.
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He’d pushed whimsically, seeing the ball turn over the stage of his bat, between his bat and cushion, or take the handle and evade the defender. Bumrah and Shami, as well, beat his temperamental bat on numerous events. Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja both addressed the constancy of his resolve.
But he did survive, and that is the essence of his hitting style. Nudging, nurdling, tucking, and ticking away like a cabbie on a busy street, scoring tough, often nasty runs. He started off with an uncharacteristically aggressive approach, striding out to Jadeja and blasting him through midwicket. The next attempted a reverse sweep, which he failed to complete (though he subsequently unfurled a flurry of them), before edging the following ball past Virat Kohli’s hands at first slip. He never seemed completely confident—there was an air of wicket-at-any-time about him, rather than the safety locker he usually exudes. But it didn’t matter to him as long as he lived.
You may not remember a single stroke he played, but you will remember the braveheart who stood up to India for nearly three hours, the man who returned to the pavilion with his jersey drenched in perspiration and splattered with dust. On a larger scale, it appears that this is the entire point of his worldwide career. To selflessly and courageously assist Sri Lanka in surviving the most difficult of their transitioning stages.
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In 34 appearances as captain, six of the fourteen hundreds have come. Many of them were doomed to fail, such as the Wanderers’ 103 and the Chinnaswamy’s 107. But it’s the tragic nature of those knocks that endears him even more. You may not recall a single stroke he made on Monday, but you will remember the man with the heart of a lion.