WATCH | Lasith Malinga takes three wickets with his new off-spinning deliveries
Lasith Malinga has shown his new off-spinning ability which helped him take three wickets during the 25th Singer-MCA Premier Knockout final match in Sri Lanka. The fearsome pacer had been a regular member of ODI side of Sri Lanka, but his recent struggling form forces him to stay out of the squad.
Malinga was not in the ODI squad which recently played against Pakistan and that's why he decided to use his time to play domestic cricket in his country. Under the captaincy of the Sri Lankan pacer, Teejay Lanka team registered a victory over LB Finance in the final of the MCA ‘A’ division knockout tournament.
Malinga’s bowling was the talking point of the game as he bowled off-spinners instead of his regular right-arm pace bowling. He hardly moved from the bowling crease for the run-up, but still managed to pick up three wickets as LB scored 125/7 in 25 overs and lost the match by 82 runs via Duckworth-Lewis method.
#Malinga the slinger turned Malinga the spinner
— AmMaD (@Cob_Adder) October 31, 2017
[📹: Cricket Aus] pic.twitter.com/7gjIr8eiIg
Ahead of the Pakistan-Sri Lanka series, the Sri Lanka Cricket stated that Malinga was not considered due to his ongoing struggles with the ball. After returning to international cricket in June this year, Malinga has played only 13 ODIs, and his most-recent international match was the T20I against India which was played on September 6. In the ODI series against India, which Sri Lanka lost 5-0, Malinga was totally ineffective and the Indian batsmen were just happy to exploit his balls.