Angelo Mathews out of Bangladesh series

Angelo Mathews, Sri Lanka's limited-overs captain, has been ruled out of the second and final Test and the two Twenty20 Internationals against Bangladesh because of a hamstring injury, Sri Lanka Cricket said on Tuesday (February 6).

According to a statement from the board, Mathews “suffered a right hamstring tightness” during the triangular One-Day International series in Bangladesh, which Sri Lanka won, and sat out the first Test.

After the tour of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka host a triangular T20I series against Bangladesh and India from March 6 to 18, and the Sri Lankan board said that Mathews’s participation in that tournament, being played to celebrate the island nation’s 70th year of independence, “will be decided after an assessment of his medical conditions”.

The all-rounder has suffered a series of injuries in recent years, with the hamstring bothering him since the beginning of 2017.

Mathews was recently reinstated as Sri Lanka’s captain for the shorter formats until the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. In his absence, Sri Lanka's Test captain Dinesh Chandimal is likely to lead the side for the two T20Is on February 15 and 18.

The first Test of the two-match series between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in Chittagong, in which 1,533 runs were scored, including five tons and six half-centuries, ended in a draw. Only 24 out of the possible 40 wickets fell across five days of play. The second Test begins on February 8 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur.