Hasaranga’s World Cup hopes dimming by the day

by Rex Clementine

Star leg-spinner Wanindu Hasaranga is waiting to get visa clearance from the British High Commission in Colombo to travel to London to consult a surgeon having suffered a grade three hamstring tear lead up to the ICC Cricket World Cup. The surgeon will assess the spinner and decide whether he requires surgery. Going under the knife invariably means that he will be out of the World Cup.

Hasaranga suffered a grade two hamstring tare during the Lanka Premier League and was ruled out of the Asia Cup. However, he was expected to be fit for the World Cup but during rehabilitation aggravated the injury.

Although the selectors had initially named him in the squad, they pulled him out in the 11th hour. But, they were hopeful that the player will recover and would be able to play some part in the ten nation tournament, at least during the tail end of the competition.

However, medical experts in Colombo from the initial stages had suggested that him recovering before the World Cup wad not a possibility.

The rehabilitation of Maheesh Theekshana, who too injured his hamstring, during Asia Cup has gone well and the bowler is expected to travel to New Delhi on Wednesday ahead of Sri Lanka’s opening game of the tournament on Saturday against South Africa.

The bowler’s condition will be assessed in India and he should get the green light to play against the Proteas, who are vulnerable against spin.

Sri Lanka will take on Afghanistan in the second warm-up game in Guwahati today.

After suffering a seven wicket defat at the hands of Bangladesh in the first warm-up game last week, the Sri Lankans will be trying to tie up a few loose ends before the business end of the competition begins later this week.

One of the key areas the former champions will be looking at is batting out the 50 overs. They failed to utilize the full quota of overs against Bangladesh.

During the warm-up games, teams batting first tend to score in excess of 300 runs and unless Sri Lanka get those runs it will be a struggle for them to defend totals less than 300 on good batting tracks no matter how disciplined their bowling is.

The bowlers in recent months have done fabulous jobs despite missing key players, but batting has been bit of a worry.

The dodgy shoulder of Kusal Janith Perera and the form of captain Dasun Shanaka will be some of the things back in the mind of the team management lead up to the game.