|
|
 |
 |
 |
| Friday, 5 March 2004 |
 |
|
 |
Sports | |
| News Business Features Editorial Security Politics World Letters Sports Obituaries
|
Aussies suffer injury scare to Brett Lee by Sa'adi Thawfeeq Australia's Test preparations, which went off smoothly at the CCC grounds, were disrupted rather abruptly by an injury to their key pace bowler Brett Lee yesterday. Lee, one of the quickest bowlers in contemporary cricket walked off midway through his fourth over with a stiff ankle and did not bowl again during the Sri Lanka Cricket President's XI second innings. The Australians who ran up totals of 484-6 declared and 250-4 declared, wrapped up the match in the third mandatory over claiming the last three wickets without a run to dismiss the home team for 323 and post a thumping 245-run win. The President's XI made 166 in their first innings. Australian captain Ricky Ponting admitted that Lee's injury was a big concern and that he hoped he would recover in time and be fit for the first Test against Sri Lanka starting at Galle on Monday. "The way Lee bowled in the first innings it's a big concern. He bowled quick and swung the ball a lot which is what we wanted him to do as an opening bowler in these conditions," said Ponting. "We needed to make the most of these conditions early and he did that in this game. We are probably hoping he will be able to do that in the first Test for us as well. Obviously scans and everything has come up pretty clear today. We'll keep a close eye on him over the weekend and hope everything comes up alright Monday." "It's unusual for him to come to when he is with an injury. He is one of those blokes that something has to be really bad before he comes to. He is a bit like (Glenn) McGrath. I think he felt the worst straightaway but the scans have shown otherwise. That's a good positive thing for him as well to get it out of his mind. There is nothing structurally wrong with him. He can just go away and rest the next couple of days and have a lot of treatment and give himself the best chance of playing," said Ponting. Australian team physio Alex Kountouri said that Lee felt stiff and sore after yesterday's (Wednesday) innings. "He experienced left ankle soreness all day, and we felt that it is best to bring him off the ground. We are continuing treatment with ice on the ankle and we will make an assessment of his condition by Sunday," said Kountouri, one-time physio of the Sri Lankan team. Precautionary X'ray Lee also underwent a precautionary X'ray yesterday and was cleared of any structural damage. Kountouri said that his condition would be monitored very closely over the weekend prior to Monday's first Test. The absence of Lee from the attack made a vast difference to the Australian bowling. Lee who wrecked the President's XI first innings with four wickets came off the field after the fourth ball of his fourth over experiencing soreness in his left ankle. However before he made his departure from the ground, Lee made the initial dent by having first innings top scorer Gunawardene caught in the gully for 11. The President's team put up a much improved batting in the second innings with skipper Tilan Samaraweera, Lanka de Silva and Gayan Wijekoon all making half-centuries, but could not hold out long enough to force a draw. Russel Arnold failed to make use of a good opportunity to impress the selectors ahead of the first Test when he drove against Shane Warne's spin and hit a catch to mid-off. He made 25. The manner in which Samaraweera and de Silva batted against the spin of Warne and Stuart MacGill should inspire the rest of the Sri Lankan batsmen for the Test series that these two bowlers in fact can be tamed and runs scored off them if they are prepared to wait for the loose balls. Yesterday there were plenty of them, which both batsmen dispatched to the boundary. Samaraweera hit seven fours in his 101 balls knock of 50 and De Silva had 17 fours in his excellent innings of 92 scored off 136 balls. Later in the day Wijekoon took the cue from them to strike 11 fours in scoring 67 off 95 balls. Ponting said that Warne who finished with two wickets for 79 runs off 23 overs could bowl better than he did yesterday. 'Warne can bowl better' "The way Shane bowled today comes with these conditions a bit. The ball turned a lot more probably than he expected. He has bowled better than that there is no doubt about it. He will be the first one to admit it. I am sure the next couple of days he can iron out little things in his action and work on his bowling come Monday," said Ponting. "There was a fair bit on the wicket for all the spinners today. They were all keen to have a good solid bowl and that's what I wanted out of the game. I said before this game that we should make the most of it in this three-day practice game. The batsman did a fantastic job and the bowlers had a good work out as well. We got pretty much everything we wanted to out of the game," he said. Looking ahead at the upcoming Test series Ponting said: "You can't take too much of what happened in the one-day series. A lot of the batsmen have done very well so far on this tour. It has always been a hard place to come and play but as I said before on this tour we were improving in these conditions all the time and the guys understand what it takes now to play well over here, especially the batsmen. All of them are looking forward to Monday." With nearly all their top order batsmen in the runs Ponting said that there was going to be some hard decisions to be taken on selecting the team for the first Test. "It is always a problem when you are picking an Australian team and probably more so from this squad .We got 15 guys here and probably 14 of those guys can put their hand up and say they think that they should be in the first Test. That's a bit of an unusual account. There's going to be some hard selections to be made. That's why they've got selectors and they can go ahead and make those," he said. AUSTRALIANS 1ST INNINGS 484-6 decl.
(R.T. Ponting 116, S.M. Katich 116, D.S. Lehmann 134)
SRI LANKA CRICKET PRESIDENT'S XI
1ST INNINGS 166
(D.A. Gunawardene 70, B. Lee 4-29)
AUSTRALIANS 2ND INNINGS 250-4 decl.
(A. Symonds 119 n.o).
SRI LANKA CRICKET PRESIDENT'S XI
2ND INNINGS
R.P. Arnold c Williams b Warne 25
D.A. Gunawardene c Katich b Lee 11
S. Jayantha c Seccombe b MacGill 45
S.I. Fernando c Symonds b Williams 10
T.T. Samaraweera c Warne b Kasprowicz 50
S.K.L. de Silva c Langer b Lehmann 92
M.R.G. Wijekoon c Seccombe b MacGill 67
K.S. Lokuarachchi c Seccombe b Warne 11
H.M.R.K.B. Herath c Kasprowicz b Symonds 4
O.L.A. Wijesiriwardene c Katich b MacGill 0
P.D.R.L. Perera not out 0
Extras (b-2, lb-3, nb-3) 8
Total (all out, 85.2 overs, 311 mins) 323
Fall of wickets: 1-30, 2-53, 3-66, 4-108, 5-209,
6-278, 7-301, 8-323, 9-323, 10-323.
Bowling: Lee 3.4-0-18-1 (1nb), Kasprowicz 10-1-43-1,
Lehmann 9.2-2-25-1, Warne 23-5-79-2 (2nb),
Williams 10-3-31-1, MacGill 13-1-57-3,
Katich 8-0-28-0, Symonds 8.2-0-27-1.
|
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
Produced by Lake House |
