Suresh Raina and Yusuf Pathan confirm their participation against Sri Lanka XI

To raise funds for disaster affected children, Sri Lanka XI decided to take on World XI in a T20 match on 8th of September for a fund raising campaign. Because of the gruelling schedule of the Sri Lankan cricketers and unavailability of their star batsmen Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena, Sri Lanka Cricket’s Technical Committee decided to post pone the event. Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan and Robin Uthappa have agreed to represent the World XI.

Apart from Suresh Raina, Pathan and Uthappa, the other stars who have confirmed their participation in the World XI squad are Shahid Afridi, JP Duminy, Farhan Behardien, Tymal Mills, Graeme Cremer, Misbah-ul-Haq, Abdur Razzaq and Luke Ronchi. The Lankan Board has not revealed the exact date of the event yet but it is expected that the match will be held at the earliest.

“A couple of key players like Mahela Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara are also not available on this date, so we felt that we could afford to wait a while and play this game at a more conducive time,” commented the CEO of Sri Lankan Cricket, Ashley de Silva according to Sportskeeda.

De Silva thanked other boards for extending their support

“We are still in the process of procuring names from the other countries from which the final 13 will be picked. From our point of view, unfortunately, Kumar Sangakkara won’t be available for the Sri Lanka XI because he has county commitments and he is not sure if he will be released by his county,” claimed the SLC CEO earlier about a fortnight back.

“We have also spoken to Mahela (Jayawardene) and while he too has a prior commitment, he has said he will try his best to work around that, if possible, to be available for the match,” concluded Silva by briefing about the availability of the two star players for Sri Lanka interested to represent SL XI, to raise funds for victims of the recent floods and also those suffering from chronic kidney diseases.