Sports
Sri Lanka depleted for second Test after players test positive for COVID
Sri Lanka have been delivered a severe blow ahead of the second Test starting in Galle on Friday as four players tested positive for COVID and the hosts were forced to bring in replacements. Australia have already retained Warne-Murali Trophy having won the first Test last week by ten wickets and Sri Lanka’s efforts of squaring the two match series has suffered a huge blow.
When testings were done on Wednesday evening, three players who featured in the first Test returned positive. Leg-spinner Jeffrey Vandersay, fast bowler Asitha Fernando and all-rounder Dhananjaya de Silva have been ruled out of the second Test while left-arm spinner Praveen Jayawickrama is already in isolation having tested positive earlier in the week. Sri Lanka have added spinners Prabath Jayasuriya, Maheesh Theekshana, Lakshan Sandakan and Dunith Wellalage into the squad and two of them are expected to partner Ramesh Mendis, who played in the first Test. Apart from Sandakan, the other spinners who were added to the squad are yet to make their debuts. The squad already has a back up batsman in Kamindu Mendis, who is likely to replace de Silva.
One good news for Sri Lanka is that former captain Angelo Mathews, who tested positive for COVID during the first Test has been given the all clear and he will take part in the game.
The Sri Lankan camp will go through another round of testing on the eve of the Test match and skipper Dimuth Karunaratne feared that there could be more players withdrawn.
“If you take the COVID situation there are several affected players and it is very difficult to say the combination. We have picked 13 players but before we select the final 11, we have another antigen test and from that we have to find whether there are any more positive cases and after that only we can announce our playing 11,” Karunaratne explained.
Australia have no such issues and they will be looking to further consolidate their position as world’s number one ranked team in official ICC Rankings. Captain Pat Cummins told journalists that the only change the tourists are considering is whether to bring in Glenn Maxwell into the equation to further strengthen their spin department. Spinners claimed 18 of the 20 Sri Lankan wickets in the first Test as the game ended before lunch on day three. Mitchell Starc is likely to be left out if they go in that direction.
“Maxwell provides us the spinning and bowling options as well. I thought he was the pick of the bowlers in the one-day series. He was excellent. All-round package that he brings in, particularly that bowling, you feel like you can easily get 15-20 overs out of him,” Cummins said.It will be quite a turnaround if the 33-year-old Maxwell is picked to play as he has not featured in a First Class game since 2019.
Sri Lanka (From)
Dimuth Karunaratne (Captain), Pathum Nissanka, Angelo Mathews, Kamindu Mendis, Ramesh Mendis, Kusal Mendis, Niroshan Dickwella (Wicketkeeper), Dinesh Chandimal, Kasun Rajitha, Prabath Jayasuriya, Dunith Wellalage, Lakshan Sandakan and Maheesh Theekshana.
Australia (From)
David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Glenn Maxwell, Cameroon Green, Alex Carey, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Swepson.
Umpires:
Michael Gough (Eng) and Kumar Dharmasena (SRI)
Third Umpire:
Nitin Menon (Ind)
Match Referee:
Javagal Srinath (Ind)
Arjun Menon, Cricket Malawi’s operations director, has died aged 48. Police are reported to be investigating the circumstances of his death in Blantyre, Malawi’s financial and commercial capital, on Sunday.
Menon played for Singapore and held coaching roles with various international teams including Chile, Botswana, Indonesia and Singapore before taking on the Malawi role in 2020.
“As Cricket Malawi, we are devastated by this loss because Arjun did so much to our transformative agenda,” Vivek Ganesan, the president of Cricket Malawi, told Nation Online. “All the successes we have so far are attributed to him. This is a very painful loss.”
Dr. Henry Kamata, CEO of the Malawi National Council of Sports, also conveyed his condolences in a statement. “Arjun was a dedicated coach and a passionate advocate for the development of cricket in Malawi,” he said. “His contributions to the sport were immense and far-reaching, playing a pivotal role in the growth and success of the Malawi cricket team on regional and international platforms.
“His commitment, professionalism, and vision were truly inspirational, and his loss is a devastating blow to the sporting fraternity in Malawi and beyond.”
During Menon’s tenure, the Malawi men’s team were runners-up behind Tanzania in Group A of the T20 World Cub Sub Regional Africa Qualifier in September 2024. The Under-19 women’s team, meanwhile, topped Division 2 of the 2025 Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier, gaining entry to Division 1 where they achieved a seventh-place finish.
[Cricinfo]
St. Peter’s College, Bambalapitiya player Ashlin de Silva won his third title of the 110th Vision Care Colombo Championships when he beat Mayooran Kubheran in the Under 16 boys’ sigles final at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association clay courts.
While Ashlin clinched the Under 16 boys’ title, Akesha Silva bagged the girls’ singles title of that age category.
Akesha Silva
Ashlin beat Kubheran 6-0 in the first set before the latter retired when the score was 3-1 in Ashlin’s favour.
Ashlin was also the winner of the Under 18 boys’ singles and joined Kubheran to clinch the Under 16 boys’ doubles title, beating Yudheerya Atapattu and Damsath Peiris 7-6, 6-2.
In the Under 16 girls’ final Newstead College player Akesha Silva beat Annaya Norbert 7-6 (3), 6-3.
IPL 2025 will resume on May 17 and end on June 3, as per the revised schedule announced by the BCCI on Monday night.
The remainder of the tournament, which was suspended on May 9 for a week due to cross-border tensions between India and Pakistan, will be played at six venues: Bengaluru, Jaipur, Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. The venues for the playoffs will be announced later, but the matches will be played on the following dates: Qualifier 1 on May 29, the Eliminator on May 30, Qualifier 2 on June 1 and the final on June 3. A total of 17 matches will be played after the resumption, with two double-headers, both of which will be played on Sundays.
The revised schedule features 13 league games and the four playoff matches. This means that the Punjab Kings (PBKS) vs Delhi Capitals (DC) game, which was called off midway through the first innings on May 8 in Dharamsala, will be played again, on May 24 in Jaipur, which will be the temporary home base for PBKS. Two days later, PBKS will play against Mumbai Indians (MI), a match they were originally meant to play in their second home base of Dharamsala on May 11. The match that will restart the tournament on May 17 will be played between Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Bengaluru.
On the first of the two double-header days, Rajasthan Royals (RR) will meet PBKS in the day game (3.30pm IST) on May 18 and DC will take on Gujarat Titans (GT) in the evening (7.30pm IST). The next Sunday – May 25 – will see GT take on Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the day game in Ahmedabad and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) meet KKR in Delhi at 7.30pm IST. The last league game will be between Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and RCB on May 27 in Lucknow.
The change in venues also means that three teams – PBKS, CSK and SRH – won’t get to play on their original home grounds anymore. With CSK and SRH out of the playoffs race, PBKS will count themselves unlucky to be playing two of their home matches at a neutral venue. With 15 points from 11 matches, PBKS were third on the points table before the tournament was suspended.
The official release said the BCCI held “extensive consultations with government and security agencies, and with all the key stakeholders” before finalising the resumption of the tournament.
The delayed finish of the IPL, which was originally scheduled to end on May 25 in Kolkata, means it will now coincide with the entire ODI series between England and West Indies starting on May 29 in Birmingham and ending on June 3 at The Oval. It will lead to a clash for Romario Shepherd (RCB), Shamar Joseph (LSG) and Sherfane Rutherford (GT), who have all been picked in the West Indies ODI squad. England have not named their squad yet but the players likely to be affected are Jos Buttler (GT), Phil Salt (RCB), Jacob Bethell (RCB), Liam Livingston (RCB), Will Jacks (MI) and Reece Topley (MI), depending on which teams make the playoffs.
The revised IPL schedule also squeezes the gap between the IPL final and the WTC final to just seven days, with Australia and South Africa set to contest the Test world title from June 11 at Lord’s. Both Australia and South Africa are scheduled to announce their squads on Tuesday. The players who are currently part of the IPL teams and are likely to be picked for the WTC final are Australia captain Pat Cummins and Travis Head (both SRH), Mitchell Starc and Tristan Stubbs (both DC), Josh Hazlewood (RCB), Marco Jansen and Josh Inglis (both PBKS), Aiden Markram (LSG), Kagiso Rabada (GT), Ryan Rickelton (MI) and Kwena Mphaka (RR).
The revised schedule will also potentially impact the India A tour of England, which is scheduled to begin from May 30, for two unofficial Tests in Canterbury and Northampton. Several fringe India players, some of whom are likely to be part of the India squad for the five-Test series starting on June 20 in England, will now be part of the IPL when the A matches begin.
For now, the biggest challenge for the 10 IPL franchises will be to re-assemble their squads and bring back overseas players and support-staff members who had begun flying back home over the weekend. The team that could find it easiest to get back together will be GT, currently on top of the table, who had seen only two of their overseas players fly back: Buttler and Gerald Coetzee. The rest of their squad was continuing to train in Ahmedabad. MI could also benefit from the revised schedule, as their first game is on May 21, four days after the tournament resumes.
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