Sonal Dinusha, Sri Lanka’s emerging middle-order batter, etched his name into cricketing folklore at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC), becoming only the eighth Sri Lankan batter to record hundreds in both innings of a Test match.
Batting lower down the order, Dinusha combined watchful defense outside off-stump with authoritative stroke play through the covers and down the ground. When forced to follow on, his second-innings vigil anchored the tail and frustrated the Indian bowlers across multiple sessions, sealing a historic personal milestone and solidifying his place as a cornerstone of Sri Lanka’s Test resurgence. India: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Devdutt Padikkal, Shubman Gill (captain), Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Saransh Jain, Manav Suthar, Mohammed Siraj, and Prasidh Krishna Sri Lanka: Lahiru Udara, Kamil Mishara, Pasindu Sooriyabandara, Kamindu Mendis, Dhananjaya de Silva (captain), Sonal Dinusha, Niroshan Dickwella (wk), Keshara Nuwantha, Prabath Jayasuriya, Lahiru Kumara, and Asitha Fernando
Dinusha, the 25-year-old left-hander produced a masterclass of temperament and grit against a formidable Indian bowling attack, scoring a fluent 103 in the first innings and backing it up with an unbeaten century in the second to spearhead Sri Lanka’s stubborn resistance. With this rare feat, Sonal Dinusha joined an illustrious fraternity of Sri Lankan legends who have registered twin centuries in the same Test match: Duleep Mendis (vs India, 1982) Asanka Gurusinha (vs New Zealand, 1991) Aravinda de Silva (vs Pakistan & Zimbabwe, 1997) Tillakaratne Dilshan (vs Bangladesh, 2009) Kumar Sangakkara (vs Bangladesh, 2013 & 2014) Dinesh Chandimal (vs India, 2015) Kamindu Mendis / Dhananjaya de Silva (vs Bangladesh, 2024) Sonal Dinusha (vs India, 2026) Dinusha’s twin-ton milestone caps off one of the most prolific individual batting series by a Sri Lankan middle-order batter against India. After notching a maiden Test century (100) and an 84 in Galle during the first Test, he walked into the Colombo encounter under immense pressure following a colossal Indian first-innings total.
