Dhananjaya de Silva and Kamindu Mendis joined an exclusive club by scoring hundreds in each innings in the first Test of the two-match series in Bangladesh.
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Sri Lanka were 57-5 after Najmul Hossain Shanto won the toss and opted to bat at Sylhet. At this point, Kamindu Mendis joined captain Dhananjaya de Silva, and the pair put on 202 runs before falling for identical scores of 102.
Once they departed, however, Sri Lanka collapsed for 280, the second-lowest all-out total in men’s Test cricket to include two hundreds. Jesse Ryder made 102 and Daniel Vettori 118 not out when India bowled out New Zealand for 279 at Hamilton in 2008/09.
However, it was the lowest all-out total to include a double-hundred stand. The previous lowest was New Zealand’s 283 against the West Indies at Kingston in 1985, which included a 210-run partnership between Geoff Howarth and Jeff Crowe.
Bangladesh folded for 188 to concede a 92-run lead, but they still had a sniff when they reduced Sri Lanka to 126-6. Yet again de Silva and Mendis got together, this time to put on 173 for the sixth wicket. Paul Gibb and Eddie Paynter (184 and 168 for England against South Africa at Johannesburg 1938/39) and David Warner and Joe Burns (161 and 237 for Australia against New Zealand in 2014/15) had also added 150 twice in the same Test, but 173 is now the new second-highest match stand by any pair.
Both de Silva (108) and Mendis (164) got their respective second hundreds of the Test as well. They became the third pair of teammates to score twin tons in a Test match, after Ian (145 and 121) and Greg Chappell (247* and 133) for Australia against New Zealand, Wellington 1973/74 and Azhar Ali (109 and 101*) and Misbah-ul-Haq (101 and 101*) for Pakistan against Australia, Abu Dhabi 2014/15. With Bangladesh five down early on in the chase, it is possible the next highest score in the game will remain Dimuth Karunaratne’s 52. That will make this the first game with two twin centurions from the same side and no other centurions in the game.
De Silva became the 15th captain (and the first since 2014/15) to score two hundreds. Of the 14 batters before him, Ricky Ponting has done it thrice but no one else twice. Before de Silva, Inzamam-ul-Haq (against England at Faisalabad 2005/06) and Misbah in the abovementioned Test were the only captains to do it while batting at No.5 or below in each innings.
Mendis, on the other hand, became the first to score two hundreds while batting at No.7 or below in each innings. His second-innings 164 came from No.8, and is the highest Test score away from home at No.8 or below. Even if one includes home innings, there are only five entries above him from those positions.
