Gunaratne ruled out of India series with fractured thumb

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Sri Lanka suffered a huge blow in the first Test against India in Galle on Wednesday (July 26) as middle-order batsman Asela Gunaratne was ruled out of the remainder of the India series, Arjun de Silva, member of Sri Lanka Cricket's medical committee, confirmed to Cricbuzz.

The all-rounder was rushed to Colombo for a surgery after he hurt his thumb while attempting a catch of Shikhar Dhawan off the bowling of Lahiru Kumara. Dhawan was on 31 when the catch was put down before he went on to register a fine century on the opening day.

"Asela will be taken for surgery soon. After this kind of injury, a player requires about six weeks to recover and play again. He is definitely out of the Test and ODIs. Maybe he stands a chance for the T20 International," de Silva revealed.

Team manager Asanka Gurusinha revealed that the team were resigned to their fate of having to miss a key member of the side as soon as the first x-ray revealed the full extent of the injury.

"He has fractured [the thumb] in three places," Gurusinha revealed. "As soon as we saw the x-rays we knew it was very serious and we rushed him to Colombo. We knew it was serious. We received a call around 3:30 PM saying that the surgeons had seen him and they will operate him tonight.

"Asela had consumed food so we need to have that gap before he was taken to the theater. Tough one to lose one of our main players. We are down with ten players against world's number one team," Gurusinha added.

Gunaratne's injury comes across as a huge dent to Sri Lanka's already depleted batting resources. Prior to the Galle Test, Sri Lanka's batting mainstay Dinesh Chandimal, who had been named the Test skipper after Angelo Mathews stepped down, was ruled out with pneumonia.

Gunaratne recently starred with the bat courtesy an unbeaten 80 against Zimbabwe in the one-off Test, as he strung together a match-winning 121-run partnership for the sixth wicket with Niroshan Dickwella to help Sri Lanka register the highest-ever run chase on home soil.

"He was our in form batsman. He is a fighter. We anyway brought Dhananjaya as stand-by for Asela who was down with a hamstring injury as well. We have to finish this Test and then look at these things," Gurusinha said.

Known for his power-hitting skills in the shortest format of the game, the Kandy-born all-rounder averages 56.87 in Tests with a hundred and three fifties to his credit.

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