Karunaratne: 'Series win in SA 2019 one of the most favourite chapters of my career'

Dimuth Karunaratne looks back on his career as he prepares to play his 100th and final Test.

You made your debut in Galle as well. What are your memories of that match?
I was shocked when I heard I was coming into the national squad. But what everyone said was that staying in the team is much harder than getting into the team. I went to the middle with so many expectations, and I got out for a duck first innings. I thought I'd lost all the hard work I ever did in just a moment. I was only there as an injury replacement, so I thought I'd never play for Sri Lanka again.

I was moping around the dressing room, when Angelo Mathews came and spoke to me, and told me he'd got a duck in his first innings as well. Other seniors - Mahela Jayawardena, Marvan Atapattu and others - came and encouraged me. So, I played with a lot of determination in the second innings and managed to get 60 not out. But more than the actual cricket in that match, what I actually remember so clearly is all the advice I got in that dressing room. I was really broken after that innings. I wouldn't have come this far without those players helping me pick myself up.

There were some seriously great batters in the Sri Lanka team in your first few years. What was that like?
The club I played for was what was really important. When I started, SSC had Thilan Samaraweera, Mahela, Thilina Kandamby, Tharanga Paranavitana, Kaushal Silva, Jeevan Mendis - a lot of the Sri Lanka team was playing at that club. So, because I'd been around them and developed with them, there wasn't a huge change for me when I got into the Test squad. They were also around to help me with raising my standards.

I think the best thing about that time was the environment. There were some great cricketers I hadn't shared a dressing room as well - Kumar Sangakkara, Rangana Herath, Prasanna Jayawardene. What I learned from being in that environment - about how to prepare mentally, especially - has been more valuable to me than skills. I think that positive dressing room environments are vital, which is why I focused on that when I was captain. For a player like me to get to 100 Tests, I needed to share a dressing room with those players.

What were the biggest mistakes you made early on?
Probably the biggest one was I would get quick starts and throw it away. I was really attacking back then and would get to 20 or 30 pretty quickly, in just a few overs. But I didn't convert a lot of those. I hadn't hit a hundred in my first 15 Tests, I think. I was making 30s, 40s, and 60s kinds of scores.

Sanath Jayasuriya was the selector at the time, and he pulled me up. I played a series in England where I was giving decent starts but not converting it, and he dropped me. He said as long as I'm not converting my starts to hundreds, he wouldn't consider me for selection. I thought at the time that when Sanga, Mahela, and others were around, my 30s or 40s are good enough. I didn't realise how much I needed to convert those scores until I got dropped. I think my average also sits where it does because I didn't make those good scores in my first 15 Tests.

When did you start feeling like you belonged at this level?
Probably around 2017. While Sanga and Mahela were around, they didn't let us feel a lot of pressure and responsibility. I changed my game a lot after they retired, and I started to score some consistent runs. That's when I sort of realised how much more the team could be getting from me. I learned how to handle pressure better at the top level, and think I had a consistent run until 2023. I think right through those years I played with a lot of confidence.

You've played in an era that's especially tough on openers. What are your reflections on that?
Yeah, I do think I've played in a difficult era. The number of flat pitches I've batted on are very few - maybe five or six surfaces in the hundred? A lot of the conditions I've played on are bowling friendly, and on top of that you have to face the toughest bowling with the new ball when you open. But I think I eventually learned to adapt to that challenge - a lot of that was knowing which were the tough periods that you needed to see out, which changes from place to place. You learn a lot playing Test cricket.

How hard is it for an opener to get to 100 Tests?
Openers do the dirtiest job in cricket. You're facing fresh bowlers, on fresh pitches, and are playing the new ball sometimes after you've been fielding for a day or two. It's a huge challenge. One thing I learned later was how to go on to bigger scores after you've survived the toughest part. Scoring that first 50 as an opener is hugely difficult compared to scoring 50 at No. 4 or 5. So it's a huge miss if you fail to convert those tough starts - why let other batters score those runs, when you could be scoring them yourself?

You've scored a lot of runs against spin, including against top attacks. But you barely play the sweep. How did that come about?
I learned that in 2017 in a series against India. R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja were bowling, and it was incredibly difficult to face them. Once they start bowling together there's not a loose ball to be found anywhere. They tend to start bowling very early in the innings as well, so there's just no chance to score. I learned a lot of patience in that series. I'd bat out their first spells, second spells, third spells, and eventually the loose balls started to come. In that series, I had a small, simple gameplan - I'm only playing these three shots, nothing else. It worked nicely. Ashwin couldn't get me out lbw, or caught behind. And eventually, I could go into my scoring shots. I scored a lot of runs that series (285 in six innings).

I kept applying that method to other bowlers, and it just kept working. I'd be patient early in their spells, and later find them much easier to negotiate. I didn't ever really need to play a sweep shot and take a calculated risk when I batted like that. But I did play the reverse - which I could play much better than the sweep. That helped build run-scoring options on the off side because a lot of teams would have a packed leg side for me.

"I didn't try to change many things. I backed players and tried to make them comfort" Dimuth Karunaratne on his captaincy

You once told me you had Dean Elgar's ESPNcricinfo profile bookmarked, because he was a more established player at the time, and you wanted to catch up with his numbers. What other players have you targeted?
There are so many openers I've looked at, even former players. Graeme Smith, Alastair Cook who scored so many runs in England, which for me is the hardest place to bat. I wanted to know how he did it. But this was a habit that I picked up in the SSC dressing room. We used to look at each other's stats and hundreds, and try to catch each other up. Tharanga Paranavitana was chasing Thilan Samaraweera, and then Kaushal Silva would be catching up. I just kept doing it. After Elgar retired, I looked a lot at the way Usman Khawaja was batting. There haven't been that many openers consistently playing for longer periods, but I wanted to know how I compared to the best.

But I've talked to these guys too, after a series, over a beer, with Elgar, Rohit Sharma, and others, and shared all that knowledge as well. How do they play when they go overseas? What's my gameplan when I play in Sri Lanka? Sharing those stories, and statistics are a big part of cricket for me. When you're old, you can still go on your profile and see what you achieved. It's something that always drove me to improve my game and play longer.

You've said in the past that Kusal Perera's 153* is your favourite innings ever. But what about your own innings - any favourites? There are two - my maiden hundred against New Zealand. It was the first match I was playing after getting back into the team, and there was so much pressure. I'd got out for a duck, and to hit a hundred in the second innings required a lot of thinking. That was a really tough hundred for me, against a great New Zealand attack.

Then there's my hundred at the SSC, against Jadeja and Ashwin. That was a pitch that took extreme turn. If I want to go and watch some of my past innings, those are the innings I go back to.

What about your hundred in Bengaluru? You got a standing ovation from the crowd and it was a pink-ball Test…
I'd put that third (laughs). There was a really tough period where we had to bat a few overs against the new ball under lights, and the end of one day, I remember telling Kusal Mendis that if I survived that period, I'd somehow get a hundred the next day. (Jasprit) Bumrah and (Mohammed) Shami with the pink ball were incredibly hard to see through that night. But then things got into a flow, and I could score runs. Probably my best innings as captain.

All three of those came in losses…
(Laughs) Yes, that's pretty sad. All of those were second-innings hundreds, and maybe that was the problem. If I'd hit them in the first innings, maybe we could have won those Tests.

As soon as you got the Test captaincy, you won a series in South Africa in 2019. Was that the high point?
It's the biggest highlight. Captaincy was never something I'd chased. I'd earlier been offered the vice-captaincy, and I'd turned it down. I was afraid of those big responsibilities because I thought it would affect my game. But then when they dropped Chandi (Dinesh Chandimal) from the team, the selectors called me and said they needed an experienced player to lead the team. I thought about it, and in the games I'd captained at lower levels, my batting had been good. So, I took the job.

We had a pretty young team, and I just made sure that the environment was good. I didn't try to change many things. I backed players and tried to make them comfort. In return I got a lot from my players. We didn't think we could win a single Test there, but then we won the first one. And in the end, we whitewashed them 2-0. It's one of my favourite chapters of my career.

Is there a record you feel you missed out on, in your career?
Scoring 10,000 runs is something that I had had in mind for a long time. Between 2017, 2018, and 2019, when I was scoring a lot of runs, I thought I had a chance of getting there. But then we lost about a year and a half to Covid-19, and then Sri Lanka started to play fewer Tests after the World Test Championship (WTC) started. I felt then that it would be hard to get to 10,000 runs. You'd have to play 120-130 Tests. That's something I am quite sad about - I was quite focused on that. After Sanga and Mahela, and I thought Angie would get there too - I'd have been the fourth Sri Lankan. To do it as an opener would have been really special.

I also thought at times that I should finish with 20-25 hundreds. But with the conditions that we've had, you have to take a lot of risks to score runs, especially in Sri Lanka. I've also got 10 or 11 eighties and nineties, and regret not converting those as well.

I also never got to play that World Test Championship final. We were close to getting there in the last two cycles. I've never been to a final even with the one-day team, so never got to experience that feeling. But what to do?