Murali pleads for Herath recovery time

SYDNEY: Sri Lanka great Muttiah Muralitharan pleaded on Monday for key spinner Ranjana Herath to be kept on ice for the World Cup quarter-finals after suffering a nasty injury to his finger.
The 36-year-old Herath needed four stitches in the spinning finger of his left hand after he tried to stop a full-blooded drive from England’s Jos Buttler in Wellington on Sunday.
“He has been Sri Lanka’s steadiest and most reliable bowler so far in the tournament,” wrote Muralitharan in his International Cricket Council (ICC) column. “I would not try to rush Herath back, either for the match with Australia or for the clash with Scotland,” he added.