World Cup 2023: Sri Lanka bring in Angelo Mathews in place of injured quick Matheesha Pathirana

Veteran all-rounder Angelo Mathews was on Tuesday drafted into the Sri Lanka squad after pacer Matheesha Pathirana was ruled out of the remainder of the ICC World Cup due to injury.

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Pathirana had suffered a shoulder injury in Sri Lanka’s high-scoring defeat against Pakistan in Hyderabad, and did not appear in the subsequent fixtures against Australia and Netherlands.

Mathews, who was part of Sri Lanka’s campaigns in each of their last three World Cups, had already joined the squad ahead of the Netherlands match in Lucknow, in which the 1996 champions collected their first points of the campaign in four outings with a five-wicket victory.

Pathirana is Sri Lanka’s second injury casualty in the ongoing tournament. Captain Dasun Shanaka too had suffered an injury during the Pakistan game — a quadriceps injury to be more specific — and was ruled out of the remainder of the campaign shortly after.

Chamika Karunaratne has since replaced Shanaka, who led Sri Lanka to Asia Cup triumph in the UAE last year, in the squad while Kusal Mendis has filled in as skipper.

Sri Lanka began their campaign with a hat-trick of defeats, getting outplayed by South Africa (102 runs) in their opening game in Delhi and suffering a five-wicket loss against Australia in Lucknow besides the defeat against Pakistan.

The win against Netherlands, however, will have renewed their confidence and given them hope of reviving their fledgling campaign, and reach the semi-finals of the showpiece event for the first time since 2011.

The development comes a day after Brydon Carse replaced Reece Topley in the English squad, with the latter getting ruled out of the tournament after suffering an injury on his left index finger during their match against South Africa in Mumbai.

England and Sri Lanka square off in their next fixture, at Bengaluru’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday, 26 October.