Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club has shown interest in featuring the Sri Lankan Test Captain, Dimuth Karunaratne, in their team for the ongoing English County Cricket season.
The club expects Dimuth Karunaratne to be in Trent Bridge in a week or so, but Karunaratne is reportedly yet to get visa clearance.
Sri Lanka is a red-listed country in the UK due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Nottinghamshire has 4 games left in the ongoing County Championship 2021 and are interested in fielding Karunaratne in their side for those. Nothing is final yet and all depends on how soon Karunaratne can make it to England overcoming the travel restrictions. The games will resume after the mid-season break on the 30th of August.
Only one Sri Lankan has represented the prestigious club so far. That is the Ceylonese great from the pre-Test era, Gamini Goonasena. The leg-spinner played 94 first-class matches for the Notts, picking up 299 wickets and 2,464 runs.
The last Asian to play for the club was the Indian spinner R. Ashwin who represented them in 2019.
Karunaratne has not played first-class cricket anywhere outside of Sri Lanka except for his Test matches. This English County experience would be a great opportunity for Karunaratne to lift his game, especially given that Sri Lanka has no Test fixture for the rest of the year.
