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Sri Lankan skipper Dimuth Karunaratne compiled a century on day three in Galle to make his 16th Test hundred and second in the ongoing two-match series against Ireland.
Karunaratne, who had made 179 in the first Test at the same venue last week, stitched a 228-run opening stand with Nishan Madushka and made his 16th Test hundred in the process. The left-handed batter equalled the record for most Test hundreds as an opener among Sri Lankan players. He equalled Marvan Atapattu's record of 16 Test tons with this knock. Besides Karunaratne and Atapattu, Sanath Jayasuriya (13 hundreds as opener) is the only Sri Lankan opener with more than ten Test hundreds. Madushka, meanwhile, became the 19th Sri Lankan opener to notch up a Test hundred and is unbeaten on 149 when rain forced early stumps on day three. Karunaratne is Sri Lanka's fifth-highest run-getter in Test cricket with 6,524 runs at an average of 41.29. No other Sri Lankan opener has more runs than him in the longest format of the game. He was in good form in the ICC World Test Championship 2021-23 cycle for Sri Lanka, making 1,054 runs at an average of 47.90 with two hundreds. He was the third-highest run-getter among openers in this cycle of the WTC. The skipper has carried that form into the bilateral series, making back-to-back Test hundreds. At stumps on day three, Sri Lanka are trailing Ireland by 135 runs, but has lost just Karunaratne's wicket with Madushka unbeaten on 149 and Kusal Mendis (83*) closing in a Test hundred. Sri Lanka lead 1-0 in the two-match Test series. Earlier in their first innings, Ireland was bundled out for 492 runs in 145.3 overs. Curtis Campher (111) and Paul Stirling (103) notched centuries for the visitors while skipper Andy Balbirnie (95) and wicket-keeper-batter Lorcan Tucker (80) fell short of their individual records. Prabath Jayasuriya (5/174) was the pick of the bowlers for Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka: 357/1 (Nishan Madushka 149, Dimuth Karunaratne 115, Curtis Campher 1/47) against Ireland: 492 (ANI).
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