Lasith Malinga is such an integral part of Sri Lanka’s bowling arsenal that it needed the nation’s president to intervene and ensure he was fit for the World Twenty20s.
The bowler with the rare sling-arm action, whose toe-crushing yorkers have tested the world’s finest batsmen, sat out the whole of last year and the early part of this year with a career-threatening knee injury.
Malinga, 25, was unable to run or train, and the swollen bone in his right knee was so painful that he could barely climb stairs.
Worried the prodigious talent could be lost to the game, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa recommended that Malinga should meet a spiritual healer Eliyantha White.
“He [White] works with supernatural powers and herbs,” Malinga explained. “I don’t know what he does or how he does it, but it works. I am very grateful to him and the president.”
The treatment lasted five days and the pain disappeared. Malinga was fit to start his training.
He marked his return to active cricket with a strong showing in the Indian Premier League in South Africa where he grabbed 18 wickets in 13 matches for the Mumbai Indians.
Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara, who once hailed Malinga as the team’s “X factor,” was delighted his premier fast bowler was raring to go.
“It’s good to have him around again,” Sangakkara said.
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