Sri Lanka’s injury woes continue in World Cup

by Rex Clementine

The Sri Lankan team’s injury woes during the World Cup is continuing as they were forced to replace fast bowler Lahiru Kumara with Dushmantha Chameera. Kumara, Man of the Match, in Sri Lanka’s eight wicket win over England in Bangalore, had suffered a left thigh muscle injury during training in Pune on Saturday.

Chameera, probably Sri Lanka’s quickest bowler, too has been injury prone and has appeared in just two games for Sri Lanka this year.

After a disappointing game against Australia, Kumara bounced back against England and Sri Lanka will miss his services with some crunch games ahead of them.

Sri Lanka have reached the business end of the World Cup where they will play three games in a week. After today’s game against Afghanistan, they will take the short flight to Bombay to play hosts India and then travel to capital New Delhi where they will play Bangladesh.

After beating England in Bangalore, Sri Lanka have found some momentum in their campaign having moved to fifth position in the points table, but the gap between them and fourth placed Australia is vast. While the Aussies have eight points, Sri Lanka are on four points. Pakistan, Afghanistan and Netherlands are also on four points, but Sri Lanka have a better Net Run Rate.

The Afghans created the tournament’s biggest upset when they beat defending champions England and then overcame Pakistan.

Afghanistan’s spin attack is Sri Lanka’s biggest challenge, and it will be an interesting contest. Sri Lanka’s attack of course has all bases covered and the pace of Chameera and Dilshan Madushanka could be handy.

There are concerns in the Sri Lankan camp about opening batter Kusal Perera’s form. He scored 78 against Australia but in the other four games fell for single digit scores. Sri Lanka have a reserve batsman in Test opener Dimuth Karunaratne. Whether the former champions will bring in Karunaratne or persevere with Perera remains to be seen.

Perera is a player who can get the team quick runs with his attacking batting, and he could get one more game today.

Afghanistan (From): Hashmatullah Shahidi (Captain), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Riaz Hassan, Rahmat Shah, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Ikram Alikhil, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Noor Ahmad, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Abdul Rahman and Naveen ul Haq.

Sri Lanka (From) : Kusal Mendis (Captain), Kusal Perera, Pathum Nissanka, Dushmantha Chameera, Dimuth Karunaratne, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Charith Asalanka, Dhananjaya de Silva, Maheesh Theekshana, Dunith Wellalage, Kasun Rajitha, Angelo Mathews, Dilshan Madushanka, Dushan Hemantha and Chamika Karunaratne.

Umpires:

Richard Illingworth (ENG) and Chris Gaffaney (NS)

Third Umpire:

Alex Wharf (ENG)

Match Referee:

Javagal Srinath (IND).