Knee injury puts Kapugedara out of Champions Trophy

Sri Lanka was dealt another injury blow when Chamara Kapugedara, the middle-order batsman, was ruled out of the rest of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 on Wednesday after hurting his knee during a training session. Danushka Gunathilaka, the left-hand opening batsman and part-time off-spinner, has been named as his replacement by Sri Lanka Cricket.

Kapugedara copped the injury during a fielding drill on the eve of Sri Lanka’s second Group A game of the tournament, against India at The Oval, which Sri Lanka must win to keep alive its chances of progressing to the semi-finals.

That offset the good news that Angelo Mathews, the regular captain,was fit enough to take the field against India after missing the opening game against South Africa, which Sri Lanka lost by 96 runs. Unfortunately for Sri Lanka, it will also be without Upul Tharanga, the opening batsman, after he was suspended for two One-Day Internationals following Sri Lanka’s “serious” over-rate offence in the South Africa game, where he led the team in Mathews’s absence.

Kapugedara, 30, is one of the senior members of the Sri Lankan team, having scored 1551 runs from 98 ODIs at an average of 21.24, scoring eight half-centuries along the way. In the game against South Africa, Kapugedara was dismissed for a golden duck by Imran Tahir after coming in at No. 5.

His replacement, Gunathilaka, is 26 and made his international debut only in 2015. He has so far played 19 ODIs, scoring 420 runs at an average of 23.33, with three half-centuries, and has five wickets in his kitty, picked up at an average of 32.80 with a best of 3 for 48.