Sri Lankan selectors recall Kumar Dharmasena after two years in the

All-rounder Kumar Dharmasena was recalled to the national team after nearly two years for the the third and final Test against Pakistan beginning at the Asgiriya Stadium, Kandy on Wednesday.

Dharmasena (29) has been in the wilderness for almost two years after the International Cricket Council's (ICC) advisory panel on illegal bowling found his action suspect and wanted it changed. Since then Dharmasena has undergone changes to his bowling action and it was only last week, that the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL) gave him the green light for selection.

Dharmasena who bowls fast off-breaks has been out of international cricket since November 1998 when he played in a Coca Cola one-day match at Sharjah.

His last Test appearance was against England at the Oval in August 1998 when Muthiah Muralitharan took 16 wickets.

Dharmasena has played in 20 Tests for Sri Lanka scoring 660 runs (avg. 22.00) and taken 50 wickets (avg. 37.48).

Dharmasena is likely to fight for a place in the final 11 with fast-medium bowler Dilhara Fernando, whose omission in the Galle Test raised a few eyebrows. Fernando made his Test debut at the SSC and took two wickets for 53 runs, but was left out in preference to the experienced Ravindra Pushpakumara at Galle. Pushpakumara finished with figures of one for 116 in a Test which Sri Lanka lost by an innings. From the 16 named for Kandy, Pushpakumara and left-arm spinner Rangana Herath have been omitted.

Wicket-keeper Romesh Kaluwitharana (30), a veteran of 38 Tests is likely to make room for uncapped 20-year-old Prasanna Jayawardene at Kandy. Kaluwitharana has a run of poor scores in the series which has apparently affected his performance behind the stumps.

Kaluwitharana has failed to get into double figures in any of his four innings in the Test series against Pakistan. Scores of 4, 6, 4, 9 does not justify a player who has a Test average of nearly 30 and three centuries.

Jayawardene, who plays for Sebastianites in the Premier tournament has been knocking on the door for some time going as understudy to Kaluwitharana on the tour to England two years ago. He belongs to the old school of wicket-keeper batsmen and not batsmen/wicket-keeper as the trend today is due to the influx of one-day cricket. Sri Lanka last had a wicket-keeper/batsman way back in the eighties in Mahes Goonatilleke.

Whether Kumar Sangakkara will join Jayewardene as a Test debutant, will be known on the morning of the Test. Sangakkara, a product of Trinity College, Kandy like Jayewardene has been showing pleasing form with the bat especially in the recently concluded series against Zimbabwe 'A' when he scored a magnificent 156 not out off 140 balls in a one-day international at Moratuwa. If at all Sangakkara gets a break it will be at the expense of either Aravinda de Silva or Russel Arnold, both of whom have been out of touch with the bat in the series.

SRI LANKA SQUAD FOR THIRD TEST

S.T. Jayasuriya, M.S. Atapattu, R.P. Arnold, P.A. de Silva, D.P.M. Jayewardene, A. Ranatunga, R.S. Kaluwitharana, H.P.W. Jayewardene, W.P.U.J.C. Vaas, D.N.T. Zoysa, M. Muralitharan, H.D.P.K. Dharmasena, U.D.U. Chandana, R.D. Fernando, K. Sangakkara, D.A. Gunawardana