Jayasuriya 50/50 for ICC Champions Trophy

Charlie Austin

August 21, 2002

Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya has a 50/50 chance of playing in the ICC Champions Trophy after dislocating his shoulder during his side's 27-run victory against South Africa in the Morocco Cup 2002 final.

Jayasuriya fell awkwardly after taking a tumbling catch at mid-on and had to be carried off the field before being transported by ambulance to the local hospital for x-rays.

Sri Lanka face Pakistan in the first game of that 12-team tournament starting on September 12, and physio Alex Kontouri will not know the full extent of the injury until after further analysis in Colombo.

"The bone popped out of his main shoulder joint, but luckily for him it went back pretty quickly, which saves some of the potential damage that could have been done," said Kontouri.

"We have to go back to Colombo and do a MRI scan before we will be able fully to assess the injury," he said. "There is no major damage at the moment, but it is a tricky joint so we will have to wait and see."

"The worst-case scenario is 12 weeks but hopefully it will be much shorter than that," he added. "One thing about him is that he is a quick healer and a gutsy guy, he doesn't mind playing with pain and if he has half a chance of playing he'll definitely be there.

"The good news is that it is his right shoulder so the injury will not affect his throwing or bowling. In the batting department his greatest problem is going to be the horizontal shots like the cut and pull, where he has to elevate his arms."

Jayasuriya, although disappointed to have had to watch from the sidelines, was delighted with his side's performance.

"It was very unfortunate but I'm glad we achieved our main objective of winning the tournament," he said. "We didn't get as many runs as we wanted, but we still thought that 235 was a competitive target and the bowlers did really well."

Dav Whatmore was delighted. "I am very pleased to see the way the team responded after the first match," he said. "There has been a real desire to get out there and compete as well as they can."

He reserved special praise for pace bowler Pulasthi Gunaratne: "He improved with every game and was confronted with a couple of real pressure situations. For someone who has only played in a handful of games he showed a lot of maturity.

Whatmore hopes the win will help Sri Lanka in the ICC Champions Trophy. "Beating Pakistan in our last game was a help and we now have to take our form into that tournament."

South Africa captain Shaun Pollock rued the loss of an important toss. "Our best chance of winning the game was to bat first, but we had discussed a strategy for batting second if we lost the toss.

"We are very disappointed, as we want to win every tournament we participate in. But we didn't bat very well, losing wickets at vital times and putting ourselves under pressure. But at the end of the day we are looking at the World Cup, which will not be played in similar conditions and we will therefore not be reading too much into this."

Coach Eric Simmons identified South Africa's batting as the major problem area. "The batsmen didn't adapt well to the conditions, making the same mistakes over and again, but there were lots of positives and we can learn from the experience move forward."

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Series/Tournaments

Morocco Cup

Teams

Pakistan

South Africa

Sri Lanka

Grounds

National Cricket Stadium