YORKSHIRE have signed Sri Lanka Test captain Dimuth Karunaratne for a three-game overseas stint, starting against Northamptonshire this week.
The top order batter, 33, is set to debut at Wantage Road from Thursday before facing Kent at Headingley and Essex at Chelmsford - all in the LV= Insurance County Championship.
Karunaratne, the number six ranked Test batter in the world, will join fellow overseas player Haris Rauf in a Yorkshire team aiming to build on their opening round victory over Gloucestershire at Bristol over the Easter weekend.
The Sri Lankan has scored 5,620 Test runs at an average of 39.57, including 14 hundreds with a best of 244.
The left-hander will bring class, experience and form to an already strong Yorkshire batting order, with him having posted two hundreds in his last three first-class matches last month.
Yorkshire’s interim managing director of cricket Darren Gough said: "We are delighted that Dimuth will be joining us for the next three Championship games.
"He has proven himself to be an exceptional leader for Sri Lanka, and is a tremendous Test Match batter.
“It can only benefit the lads in our changing rooms to have a player of his quality, and I'm sure they will all get a lot from it. I'm confident he will contribute runs and enjoy his time at Yorkshire.”
Karunaratne is Yorkshire’s fourth overseas signing of 2022.
He joins Rauf, who will play in both the early stages of the Championship and Vitality Blast, and Finn Allen and Shadab Khan, both of whom have been recruited solely for the Blast.
Karunaratne’s stay with Yorkshire is only short-term, but it will hopefully give Tom Kohler-Cadmore enough time to recover from the concussion symptoms he has been suffering since being hit on the helmet whilst on Pakistan Super League duty in February.
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