Lasith Malinga is likely to be ruled out of Sri Lanka's tour of England due to an injury to his left knee. The pacer played just one match in Asia Cup in Bangladesh and then missed the ICC World Twenty20 and has also not been part of the ongoing Indian Premier League 2016 season, reports Cricbuzz.
“Malinga is suffering from a stress reaction in the knee,” Harindu Wijesinghe, the Sri Lanka Cricket medical committee chairman, said on Thursday. “This has been caused by pressure being put on the knee. There is a chance that a stress reaction could worsen to a stress fracture, at which point he would need surgery.”
“A few doctors have been advising Malinga, and we feel that he needs to rest his knee, while undergoing physiotherapy and strengthening. Only after seeing how the injury reacts to this, will we be able to say how long he might be unavailable. It might be a number of months before we decide to scan and test him again. It's difficult to put a time frame on his recovery."
Malinga has already suffered a knee injury in 2009 and was forced to stay away from cricket for a year. He then retired from Test cricket in 2010.