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| Sunday, 09 March 2003 |
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Jayasuriya determined to play against India Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from South Africa & kenya JOHANNESBURG, March 8 - A badly bruised left forearm and a hairline fracture on his left thumb is unlikely to keep Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya away from the scene of action. Sri Lanka manager Ajith Jayasekera said that Jayasuriya was determined to play in the World Cup Super Sixes match against India at the Wanderers on Monday. "Sanath's injury has been treated with ice. The swelling has gone down and the pain has subsided a little in his forearm," said Jayasekera here today. "The hairline fracture in his left thumb is an old injury which came up on the X'ray. Sanath thinks he got it during the game against the West Indies, but although he had some pain, he was comfortable enough to play against South Africa and Australia," said Jayasekera. "His main concern is not the thumb, but his forearm. He will have a net tomorrow to check it out," he said. Even if Jayasuriya plays he will have a problem with his bowling, because he might experience some difficulty in gripping the ball with his injured thumb. Jayasuriya was hit twice in one over by Australian fast bowler Brett Lee's thunderbolts in the Super Sixes match at Centurion on Friday which Sri Lanka lost by 96 runs. The Sri Lanka captain was forced to retire hurt with his score on one and he didn't return to resume his innings. It is not surprising that Jayasuriya is determined to play against India. He has an excellent record against India scoring 1746 runs (avg. 37.95) with four hundreds and 10 fifties which includes the highest-ever score made by a Sri Lankan batsmen in one-day internationals - 189 at Sharjah. Apart from Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka are also facing injury problems with middle-order batsman Hashan Tillakaratne. Jayasekera said that Tillakaratne had aggravated a hamstring injury which he suffered during the South African match and his fitness was a concern ahead of the match against India. Sri Lanka are also faced with the poor batting form of Mahela Jayawardene who has failed to get into double figures in five innings in the tournament. He was dismissed for a third ball duck against Australia on Friday and looked a man who has lost all confidence in himself. Jayasekera said that Jayawardene's continued poor form will be up for discussion during team selection before the Indian game. The likelihood is that 22-year-old tall left-hander Jehan Mubarak will get his first game in the World Cup. "When a player like Mahela is out of form he has to come out of it himself. We have given him as much help as we can. He has batted in every net session. He is a special player whom we very sadly miss," said Sri Lanka coach Dav Whatmore. "Mahela is more disappointed than anybody else with his contributions to the side. His confidence is pretty low. He is a realist. He is not emotional about things like that. Every batsman goes through a patch like that," he said. Whatmore said that his boys weren't very clever on Friday against Australia and, the next game against India on Monday would be another test on their character. "We didn't play our percentage game particularly well. When we bowled in that first 15 overs, we gave a lot of boundaries. We erred on the short side rather than anything else. I felt the captain (Ricky Ponting) had a couple of lives. When you are playing opposition like this, at this stage it is difficult to give them more than once chance. We paid for it," said Whatmore. "Australia are a very strong and tough team playing with a lot of confidence. It doesn't matter if one or two get injured somebody else just pops up and blends in as if they've been playing all along. They are a very good team at the moment," he said. "The next one against India won't be easy either. They are not a bad side and we need to get some points on the board, sooner than later. Our objective is to win as many matches as we can, minimum of two," Whatmore said. Sri Lanka who have 7.5 points from the first round, have matches against India and Zimbabwe on March 15 to qualify for the semi-finals. Australian captain Ricky Ponting who scored a century and took the man-of-the-match award said that everything went right as planned for his team. "The batting was very good, and the bowling with the new ball was excellent. We had them under pressure right from the word go. We had spoken about it at our team meeting yesterday (Thursday), and we actually stuck to our plans particularly well," said Ponting. "Any pitch that has got a fair amount of pace and bounce, guys like (Brett) Lee and (Glenn) McGrath are going to get the most out of it. We can unsettle them in that fashion and that's what we did today. "The wicket was very good and we capitalised on it to post a big total. If we keep preparing well and keep playing the way we are, we know that we will be very competitive in every game we play," he said. Ponting said what made the Australians so competitive was that the individuals in the team always wanted to go out and improve themselves, whether they are playing a game or practising. He said that Adam Gilchrist's innings of 99 off 88 balls set the game for them for the rest of the day. Ponting rated Sri Lanka as "a pretty good one day side who are always able to lift themselves against Australia". |
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