The county cricket season has started in England right now. Most of the cricketers playing in the County Championship are from England only, but there are also a few overseas players in each county. Some of the prominent names who will be playing county cricket this year includes the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara, Mohammed Rizwan and Dimuth Karunaratne.
While Pujara has already reached England for his county cricket stint, Karunaratne has not been able to land in the United Kingdom because of his visa issues. According to a Sri Lankan journalist, Karunaratne will miss the first match of Yorkshire county because he is still in Sri Lanka.
Taking to Twitter to explain the reason behind Dimuth Karunaratne’s absence in the first match of Yorkshire, the journalist wrote:
Dimuth Karunaratne will miss Yorkshire’s opening First Class game in Bristol today as he awaits his visa. Can someone inform the British High Commission in Colombo that this is Sri Lanka’s Test captain and world’s number sixth ranked batsman.
— Rex Clementine (@RexClementine) April 14, 2022
Dimuth Karunaratne was in solid touch during the ICC World Test Championship series between the Sri Lankan cricket team and the Indian team
Earlier this year, Karunaratne captained the Sri Lankan cricket team in their away ICC World Test Championship series against the Indian cricket team. While the Sri Lankan team lost the series by a scoreline 0-2, Karunaratne earned the respect of the fans with his stellar performance.
Playing in the tough conditions for batters during the pink-ball Test match in Bengaluru, Karunaratne scored a century for the Sri Lankan cricket team. However, it ended in a losing cause. After that century, Karunaratne received praise from many fans on social media.
He also holds the sixth position on the ICC Test Rankings for batters. It will be interesting to see when he is able to play county cricket for Yorkshire.