by Rex Clementine

Sri Lanka will be under tremendous pressure leading up to the Colombo ODIs later this week as they face a probable series defeat after England took a 2-1 lead in the five match series at the end of the Dambulla leg. Muttiah Muralitharan apparently has recovered sufficiently from a bicep injury, but Sri Lanka will not risk him if he’s not 100 percent.

Pressure is on the hosts to win the next two games and Muralitharan will be a vital factor, but Mahela Jayawardene said the team needed to look at the bigger picture.

"Murali’s is a totally different issue and we will have to be certain that he’s 100 percent before playing him in Colombo. He’s such an important factor for us with tough five Test Matches coming up against Australia and England and there’s no way we can risk him. We don’t want to rush things with him," Jayawardene told journalists.

The off-spinner suffered the injury while playing his last county game for Lancashire before returning home for the T20 Championship in South Africa. Murali withdrew from the campaign and despite being named in the 15 man squad, hasn’t played any games in the series.

"Murali has started bowling in the nets and he’s been talking to us. When we were in Dambulla, our physio Tommy Simsek came to Colombo to see his condition. Once Murali comes for practices we’ll try to assess his condition, but as for now, we don’t have any news to say he’s healing or whatever," Jayawardene added.

Jayawardene admitted the blame for the batting debacle that has left the hosts with an uphill task against a team that doesn’t play ODI cricket that well.

"People have been saying that win the toss and bat first at Dambulla and the result will take care of itself and that’s very easy to say. But we realized even after winning the toss that it was a tough wicket and that we had to put the runs on the board. It was a very slow wicket and 200 was a very good target. But the way we batted didn’t get us there and it’s bitterly disappointing," Jayawardene said.

"Even after losing a few wickets we could have still batted through the overs to get to a competitive score. We didn’t bat the last seven overs and that was a big let off, but I am very proud of the way the bowlers came back," he added.

Dambulla has never been a ground for big scores and Jayawardene felt that batsmen shouldn’t be too ambitious and need to be practical

"On these tracks, it’s not easy to bat. It’ll move around a bit in the night and rather than thinking of 70s or 80s or even big hundreds, if the middle order can get those 30s and 40s, that’ll get us to a good enough score," he felt.

Jayawardene also justified the decision to go with a four seam attack leaving out leg-spinner Kaushal Lokuarachchi.

"With the conditions here, Loku was in the reckoning from game one. But when playing under lights came into the equation and with the combination we had, it was hard to fit him in," Jayawardene stressed.