Muthiah Muralitharan has been ruled out of the ICC World T20 with a groin injury. Muralitharan suffered from the injury in Sri Lanka’s first game of the tournament against New Zealand.
Muraltharan will be sorely missed by Sri Lanka, who go into today’s match against Zimbabwe knowing that they cannot lose it. If the Lankans do lose the game, they will be knocked out of the tournament, and though Zimbabwe is not a very strong opposition on paper, they had gone on to stun Australia and Pakistan in the warm-up games.
New Zealand had beaten Sri Lankan in that first game and Murali had ended with figures of 2/25 off the four overs. However, immediately after finishing off with his spell, he had walked off to the pavilion and did not come on the field again.
There is a good chance that Sri Lanka will go into the game with Suraj Randiv as the spinning partner to Ajantha Mendis. No replacement has yet been named in the Sri Lankan squad.