Asia Cup: Lasith Malinga Admits he is Not Fully Fit After Guiding Sri Lanka to Win

Lasith Malinga, after picking up a match winning four-wicket haul in his first outing since November, said he is still not fully fit, raising questions on his participation further in the Asia Cup. (Asia Cup Twenty20: Lasith Malinga Guides Sri Lanka to Victory over United Arab Emirates)

"I am not alright. I have still not fully recovered. I wanted to play this match and help the other players and show them you can do whatever the team needs," said Malinga after leading his team to a 14-run win over UAE in their Asia Cup opener here on Thursday.

His effort made the difference after Sri Lanka put up an ordinary batting performance to end up with 129/8. Malinga admitted that batting needs to improve.

"Yes it (batting) is an issue. After the retirement of Sanga (Kumar Sangakkara) and Mahela have experience, we will have to give time to the youngsters," the captain added.

UAE captain Amjad Javed said the team will look to bounce back against Bangladesh tomorrow.

"The whole game was excellent. We put them [Sri Lanka] under pressure with the bowling. It was a big set back to lose two wickets to Malinga in the first over. Then we lost two more wickets and it is always difficult to chase. We have a match tomorrow. We will come back and try to do our best," said Javed, whose team ended with 115/9 in 20 overs.