Duleep Mendis's Twin 105s vs India — Madras, September 1982

Sri Lanka had played seven Tests since their February 1982 debut and were touring India for the first time.

Mendis had taken over the captaincy from Warnapura and won the toss at Chidambaram Stadium.

Sri Lanka's first Test tour of India came less than a year after their inaugural Test against England. Captain Bandula Warnapura, an out-of-form opener at home, was replaced by Duleep Mendis as captain. At Chidambaram Stadium Mendis won the toss, batted, and made 105 — his maiden Test hundred. Sri Lanka declared at 346, India replied with 566 for 6 declared (Sandeep Patil 114). Following on or facing a deficit of 220, Mendis came in at first drop and made another 105 — exactly the same score. He remains the only batsman in Test history to have scored identical hundreds in both innings of a Test. The match was drawn. Sri Lanka had, in their first Test in India, more than held their own; Mendis's twin centuries became the symbol of a country that, while losing, was clearly belonging.

“I had not realised it was the same score until they told me at the end.”

“He played us with the calm of a player from a Test nation of fifty years.”

Sri Lanka drew the series 0-0 — a major moral result for them.