Angelo Mathews has played 221 ODIs for Sri Lanka and the 36-year-old has amassed 5865 runs at an outstanding average of 41.20.

New Delhi: The Event Technical Committee of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 has approved that veteran all-rounder Angelo Mathews on Tuesday replaced injured pacer Matheesha Pathirana in Sri Lanka’s World Cup squad ahead of their match against England here on Thursday.

Angelo Mathews has played 221 ODIs for Sri Lanka and the 36-year-old has amassed 5865 runs at an outstanding average of 41.20. The 36-year-old Mathews has also picked up 120 wickets with his medium-pace bowling. Sri Lanka will get a huge boost as Mathews is a very good middle-order batter and can be used as a new ball bowler.

The Sri Lankan pacer Matheesha Pathirana was ruled out of the tournament after suffering a shoulder injury against Pakistan on October 10. He returned home recently but the extent of his injury and recovery time remains unclear.

Pathirana is the second Lankan player to be ruled out of the World Cup after captain Dasun Shanaka flew back home with a quadriceps tear, an injury that warranted at least three weeks of recovery time. Chamika Karunaratne was named as Shanaka’s replacement. Kusal Mendis has stepped in as Lankan captain in place of Shanaka.

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) had earlier added Veteran Angelo Mathews and pacer Dushmantha Chameera to the squad as injury backups. “Sri Lanka Cricket wishes to announce that Angelo Mathews and Dushmantha Chameera will join the team in India as traveling reserves,” an official statement read on October 19. “The Sri Lanka Cricket Selectors took this decision in order to ensure that the team has ready replacements in place to face contingencies, such as an injury to an existing squad member.”

Currently, the Sri Lankan side has just won one match out of five matches they have played so far in the ODI World Cup 2023 tournament and are placed in the second last position only ahead of England who are at the bottom of the table.