The top side in the ongoing 2023 World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, lost their premier pacer Dushmantha Chameera to injury and replaced him with left-arm seamer Dilshan Madushanka. Having won four out of as many games played so far, Sri Lanka stand tall in the first place, but losing Chameera still comes as a blow to them.
Chameera, who only played in the warm-up matches due to an injury he suffered at a training session earlier, now got ruled out of the tournament. The right-arm bowler returned to the Sri Lankan setup for the first time since last year’s T20 World Cup in Australia, where he tore his calf muscle and missed around 30 out of 32 matches across formats since then.
Meanwhile, Madushanka is picked on the back of an impressive performance against the touring South Africa A side this month, picking nine wickets across three 50-over games. Besides, he also returned with four wickets in the four-day match.
Earlier, during the inaugural Lankan Premier League (LPL) auction, Madushanka became the most-expensive buy, bought by Jaffna Kings for US$ 92,000.
Last week only, he was one of the three players added to the Sri Lankan squad as standby options. In 44 ODI matches played the left-arm quick has picked 50 wickets at an economy of 5.39.
Sri Lanka set to seal CWC berth
Having missed out on direct qualification for the upcoming World Cup in India, starting October 5, Sri Lanka was part of the ten teams across two groups fighting for the remaining two berths in the Qualifier in Zimbabwe. After finishing the first stage on the top with convincing wins in all games, Sri Lanka will now face the Netherlands on Friday and West Indies on July 7.
Opening batter Dimuth Karunaratne is their highest scorer with 223 runs in four matches, including hitting his maiden ODI hundred against Ireland, while leg-spinner Wanindu Hasaranga is leading the wickets tally with 18 wickets so far in the tournament. In four matches played, he picked three back-to-back four-wicket hauls, becoming only the second bowler after legendary Waqar Younis to achieve this.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka will host Pakistan for a bilateral series after this tournament and participate in Asia Cup 2023 that follows, co-hosted by them and Pakistan. While only four matches will take place in Pakistan, nine games, including all of India’s ones will happen in Sri Lanka.
Asia Cup starts on August 31 and will go till September 17.
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