Green light for injured Sri Lankan players (19 December 1998)

19 December 1998

Green light for injured Sri Lankan players

By Sa'adi Thawfeeq

All four injured Sri Lanka players have been given the green light by team physio Alex Kountouri to make the tour to Australia later this month.

Two of them, Upul Chandana and Nuwan Zoysa have already proved their fitness by playing in matches, while off-spinner Muthiah Muralitharan is expected to play his first competitive game since injuring his bowling arm in Dhaka seven weeks ago, by returning to lead Tamil Union in the Premier limited over today and tomorrow at the Sara Stadium.

Vice captain Aravinda de Silva is the only one of the injured players who is unlikely to play in any matches in Sri Lanka prior to the team's departure on December 28.

"Aravinda is just not quite there. He is struggling a little bit, but he should be okay in about a week or two," said Kountouri.

According to the physio, de Silva is batting 'remarkably well' at the nets and he can also sprint. However, because of the nature of his injury, de Silva has been asked not to push himself too much into playing a match prematurely (when he will have to run around and field) and risk aggravating it.

De Silva has a large tear in his left thigh muscle which is taking a long time to heal. He suffered it during Sri Lanka's Champions trophy match against Zimbabwe at Sharjah last month.

Sri Lanka are not expected to play their first match of the Carlton and United World Series Cup until January 11 when they meet England in a night game at Brisbane, which gives de Silva sufficient time to recover from his injury.

Prior to that, they also have three warm-up games against Australian 'A' sides on January 3, 5 and 8. So there doesn't seem to be any logic in asking de Silva, to risk himself and play a match at home for the sake of playing, when a fully fit de Silva would prove more beneficial to the side when the tournament proper gets under way.

Key spinner Muralitharan no longer suffers from the pain in his bowling arm, but by his over eagerness to bowl at the nets, he has developed a callous in his spin finger. According to Kountouri, it is not expected to be a disadvantage to his bowling.

Left-armer Zoysa proved his fitness by playing in the practice game at the NCC grounds on Wednesday. There will always be a debate over Zoysa's fitness. The lanky fast bowler is one of the most exciting fast bowling prospects to emerge from the schools for a long time.

The physio says Zoysa will always have problems with his fitness because of his unusual development. But his talents are vast that he cannot be ignored in conditions which will suit his type of bowling.

Source :: Daily News (https://www.lanka.net)