He suffered the injury while hitting at 79 on the opening day of the two-round series.
Dhananjaya de Silva has been ruled out for the remainder of the South African tour with a grade two tear in his left thigh. de Silva had retired injured in ’79 on the opening day of the test series against South Africa on Saturday, and had to be carried off the field in a buggy. He underwent an MRI after the close of the game, which confirmed a tear of “around 20% or 30%,” according to team principal Ashantha de Mel. Sri Lanka expects De Silva to recover in two weeks, in time to be available for England’s test tour of Sri Lanka in January.
“He can barely take it right now so he won’t go out on the field,” de Mel told ESPNcricinfo. “Maybe if we’re in dire straits, we might consider hitting him, but he can’t even walk out the gate.”
De Silva’s 79 of 106 balls helped Sri Lanka rebound from 54 of 3, and his flowing innings brought them to 185 without further losses when he completed a single off rookie Lutho Sipamla. However, he immediately seemed to feel very uncomfortable, collapsing to the ground and had to be helped out of the field. The base established by him and the other half centurion Dinesh Chandimal (85) helped Sri Lanka finish the first day with 340 out of 6.
The injury not only affects Sri Lanka’s batting resources in the ongoing test, but also weakens his attack, as De Silva has been effective with his offspring on Sri Lanka’s latest tour of South Africa. The only other slow bowler in the XI is rookie Wanindu Hasaranga.
De Silva now hopes to be fit for the first Test against England, which begins on January 14 in Galle.
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