Matheesha Pathirana has cleared the mandatory Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) fitness test and has been given the no-objection certificate to travel to India and link up with his team Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at IPL 2026.
ESPNcricinfo understands that Pathirana has recovered sufficiently from his injury. He will travel to India and is likely to join KKR there on April 17, the day of their next game, against Gujarat Titans, but only be available for selection from the subsequent game, on April 19 at home against Rajasthan Royals.
The news will come as a boost to KKR, who are at the bottom of the IPL points table – Chennai Super Kings, their next opponents and Pathirana’s previous team, have just moved ahead of them – after three losses and one washout in four outings so far.
While not a lot has gone right for KKR so far, the bowling has been a major area of concern following the injury-enforced withdrawals of Harshit Rana and Akash Deep, as well as the release of Mustafizur Rahman, before the start of the tournament on the BCCI’s instructions, and spin frontman Varun Chakravarthy’s loss of form.
They failed to defend 220 in their first game, against Mumbai Indians, and have since fallen short by 65 runs to Sunrisers Hyderabad. On Thursday, they lost the game from a position of strength in the death overs with the ball against Lucknow Super Giants.
Pathirana, who was bought by KKR for INR 18 crore at the last IPL auction, was always expected to miss the initial few matches of the tournament after picking up a calf strain during the T20 World Cup earlier in the year. On March 20, it had emerged that he would be able to join KKR by mid-April at the earliest.
That was pending the NOC, for which SLC requires the player in question to pass the fitness tests. In the previous update, on April 6, Pathirana hadn’t appeared for the fitness test. His scenario was same as Wanindu Hasaranga’s, who also picked up an injury during the T20 World Cup and, in an update on Thursday, has been ruled out of IPL 2026 altogether.
