lanka premier league

Lasith Malinga, Chris Gayle pull out of Lanka Premier League (LPL 2020)

By Senior Writer

Posted on November 19, 2020

Lasith Malinga, Chris Gayle pull out of Lanka Premier League (LPL 2020)

The Lanka Premier League (LPL 2020) is facing back to back huge blows as several players are pulling themselves out of the league. Recently, the news has come out defining Liam Plunkett, Chris Gayle, and Lasith Malinga’s exclusion from their respective squads.

Also, earlier, Sarfaraz Ahmed, the former Pakistani skipper, who was all set to captain the Galle Gladiators, was pulled out of the team. This is another blow for Gladiators on losing their national icon player as Malinga is no more apart. Plunkett and Gayle, being the major T20 players, have refrained themselves from Kandy Tuskers. Notably, Gayle and Plunkett exclusion’s reasons have not been specified.

Lasith Malinga, Chris Gayle pull out of Lanka Premier League (LPL 2020)

“We are sad to announce that Chris Gayle will not be playing for us in this year’s @LPLT20,” Tuskers tweeted without specifying the reasons for the West Indian’s decision.

This was followed by another tweet, “We are also sad to announce that Liam Plunkett will also not be playing in this year’s @LPLT20.”

Malinga, who has excused the management defining ‘insufficient time to practice’ as a reason for his unavailability, has not been a factor of cricket since West Indies vs Sri Lanka in early 2020. Hence, it will be hard for him to step in the ground without better form and fitness.

“Since the West Indies series early this year, I haven’t had any cricket, and there hasn’t been any training for me at all,” Malinga, who had opted out of the recently-concluded IPL in the UAE citing personal reasons, told ESPNcricinfo.

“When the draft happened last month, I thought there would be about three weeks of training before the LPL, but there has been nothing. They are only having us come to Hambantota this week, and even there they are asking us to do three days of quarantine.

“It’s not easy for a bowler to play at a high level without training. At the LPL they also have matches on back-to-back days. So I decided not to play in the tournament.”