Murali unfit for three ODIs

Muttiah Muralitharan has been ruled out of Sri Lanka’s first three ODIs against England at home.

Muralitharan was initially named in the squad, with the hope that he would recover from his bicep injury by the time of the start of the series. However, his injury has not yet healed, and the Sri Lankan management does not want to risk aggravating the injury by playing him, especially with another series against Australia away coming up.

The Sri Lankan captain, Mahela Jayawardene, said, “We don’t want to rush him. He’s almost there, but we just have to make a decision whether we would like to risk him like this soon after injury. We will make sure that we will make a sensible decision.”

Sri Lanka has named Kaushal Lokuarachchi as Muralitharan’s replacement.