Vass, Randiv on standby

Chris DHAMBARAGE

The Sri Lankan cricket team arrived in Mumbai yesterday for the ICC 2011 Cricket World Cup final with doubts hanging over the injury of dynamic all rounder Angelo Mathews.

The 24 year old suffered a minor injury while fielding during Sri Lanka’s five wicket victory over New Zealand in the semifinal match and later batted with a runner in the day night encounter played at the R. Premadasa Stadium on Tuesday.

A team spokesman stated that Mathews will need at least a couple of days to recover and will be working along with the physio in a desperate attempt to be fit for the important World Cup final encounter on Saturday at the Wankhede Stadium.

Meanwhile selection committee sources revealed that former Sri Lanka fast bowler Chaminda Vaas has been kept on standby as a replacement for Angelo Mathews.

In addition Suraj Randiv is likely to be the replacement as an emergency in case off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan is also declared unfit for the World Cup final.

Sri Lanka will be making their second successive final appearance and the third in all in a World Cup event after having finished runners-up to Australia four years ago in the Caribbean.

The 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup final will be of great significance as the high profile summit clash on Saturday would be the first-ever all-Asia final in the history of the tournament.

The champions of this flagship event of the game would receive a cash award of USD 3 million, while the runners-up would take home USD 1.5 million out of the total prize pool of USD 12.52 million.

Sri Lanka have played four One Day Internationals at this venue, including a league match in this tournament against New Zealand. Out of those four, they have won two and lost two.