Sri Lankan all-rounder Jeevan Mendis has been be ruled out of the remainder of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 after suffering a hamstring injury during the team's practice session on Tuesday. Sri Lanka will fly in left-handed batsman Upul Tharanga to replace Mendis after the replacement was approved by ICC's Technical committee.
Mendis, whose injury was initially said to keep the all-rounder out for a period of 10 days, was ruled out of the tournament after scans on his hamstring revealed the injury to be more serious than originally envisioned. Sri Lanka's skipper Angelo Mathews confirmed the development in his presser ahead of the Bangladesh game.
"Jeevan (Mendis) will be out for a minimum of two to three weeks," he said. "Upul (Tharanga) will be arriving tonight while Jeevan will be going back after the next game and will be out of the series."
Tharanga, who played the 2011 World Cup final, last featured in Sri Lanka's 5-0 series loss against India in early November. A mediocre batting average of 22 in 2014 lead to his exclusion from Sri Lanka's original 15-man World Cup squad. While Tharanga is expected to move to the top of Sri Lanka's batting order, chief selector and World Cup winner Sanath Jayasuriya believes Tharanga can bat anywhere between positions one and seven.
"Tharanga has batted at all positions from Nos. 1 and 7, and has performed equally well," Jayasuriya said.
"That is an advantage. His vast experience is a big plus but we also considered his good performances in recent domestic cricket," he added.
The former batsman however hinted that Tharanga might not be played straightaway against Bangladesh on Thursday.
"Upul will be in contention. But between the management and the selectors, we will decide whether we want to play him or not. We'll look at how Upul is doing before making a call on if he will play tomorrow. There's only about 12 hours from the time he lands, and the start of the game," Jayasuriya said.
Tharanga has 5339 runs in 176 ODIs at an average of 33.57 that includes 13 centuries and 28 fifties. Sri Lanka, who are currently fourth in Pool A, next face Bangladesh on Thursday.
(crickbuzz)
