Murali to miss next two ODIs

Chris Dhambarage

CRICKET: Sri Lanka who are trailing 1-2 in the five match series suffers a major blow as ace spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was ruled out of the crucial fourth and fifth one day internationals against England at the R. Premadasa stadium this week.

Sri Lanka are faced with a must win situation in their remaining two games after going down to England in successive outings at the Rangiri Dambulla International stadium last week. Sri Lanka's solitary victory in the series was recorded in the first one day international where they triumphed by a massive margin of 119 runs.

But England have bounced back in style by registering back to back victories and now they in line for their first ever one day international series win on Sri Lankan oil. The Lankans have somewhat struggled to dismiss the England side in their last two outings where the visitors have scored 234 for 8 and 164 for 8 respectively.

Kushil Gunasekera the manager of Muttiah Muralitharan confirmed that the Sri Lankan off spinner has decided to rest him as he has not fully recovered from his bicep injury which he sustained while bowling long spells for his English County side Lancashire this season.

Earlier Muralitharan indicated that he would keep away from only the first three one day internationals and would make a comeback during the last two games which are scheduled for Wednesday and Saturday at the R. Premadasa Stadium.

However Gunasekera said that Muralitharan has just started to bowl following his injury and will not risk himself especially with an important tour to Australia coming up in November.

The 35 year old champion off spinner is chasing retired Australian spinner Shane Warne's world Test record of 708 wickets and will travel to Australia needing nine wickets from the two Test matches to become the highest wicket taker.

Muralitharan has also captured 455 wickets from 297 one day internationals at an average of 22.68. In fact he is the second highest wicket taker in the shorter version of the game behind Wasim Akram of Pakistan who has a total of 502 scalps from 356 matches at an average of 23.52.

Muralitharan picked up 23 wickets in the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies although Sri Lanka were unable to repeat their 1996 final win against Australia. His previous international assignment was when he played in the home Test series against Bangladesh With the last of his 26 wickets in this he became the second player to claim 700 Test wickets.

Meanwhile Sri Lanka's Farveez Maharoof is out of danger and is recovering well after having suffered a strain muscle above his rib cage during the third one day international against England at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium on Sunday.

The fast bowler who opened the attack for Sri Lanka was in some pain while bowling and needed assistance from the physiotherapist Tommy Simsek.

However Sri Lankan team manager Shriyan Samararatne said that Maharoof will be fit to play in the fourth one day international against England on Wednesday although they had taken a scan as a precautionary measure.

Maharoof is currently the leading wicket taker from either side in the one day series with ten wickets from three outings for a splendid average of 9.50.