Sri Lanka received a huge boost ahead of their World Cup quarter-final match against England on Saturday when their key spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was declared fit to play. Muralitharan bruised his knee and suffered a hamstring injury while batting during Sri Lanka's final Group A fixture against New Zealand at Mumbai six days ago.
Sri Lanka were left worrying over Muralitharan's fitness ahead of the England match, but Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara laid to rest all the fears when he said, "Murali is fine to play and 100 percent okay, which is great for us."
Despite his injury Muralitharan, who had to twice leave the field for treatment, took four wickets to bowl his team to victory over New Zealand. "Murali is a guy who rises to the occasion and does really well at big games. So the side feels confident about what he can produce for us in important games," said Sangakkara.
Sangakkara and his team know that to it is left to them to prolong Muralitharan's one-day career for as long as possible, and at least up to the final on April 2. Muralitharan, who is the leading wicket-taker in Tests (800 wickets) and in ODI cricket (530 wickets), has announced that he is retiring from one-day cricket at the end of the World Cup. "That's exactly the way we are going to look at it and that's exactly how we are going to try and play this game," said Sangakkara.
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