Gunaratne to miss rest of the series with broken thumb

26 July 2017 02:03 pm Views - 2371

Sri Lanka suffered a huge blow early on day one as all-rounder Asela Gunaratne fractured his thumb during the Galle test. He is expected to undergo surgery later today and will  miss the rest of the series.

Gunaratne dived to his left to catch an edge off Shikhar Dhawan off the bowling of Lahiru Kumara. The ball hit him on the end of the thumb as Gunaratne clutched his hand in pain. Soon after, he left the field.

"It is a sad one - he will miss a minimum of four weeks, but I think it will be more," SLC cricket manager Asanka Gurusinha said at the end of first day’s play. "We will know in the next 48 hours what the exact time frame is. Just below his thumb there are about three pieces of bone. It is pretty serious. As soon as we saw the x-ray, we realised it was serious, so we sent him to Colombo. We got a call around 3:30 or 4pm today to say that the surgeons have seen him and they are operating on him tonight."

s on 31 then and went on to complete his century off 110 balls, after lunch.