By P. Karunakharan. Colombo, Sri Lanka, 09:31 PM IST

Sri Lanka's wicketkeeper and batsman Kumar Sangakkara is leaving for Australia later this week to undergo a finger surgery on his left hand, a Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) official said here Thursday.

'Sanga has been struggling with a pain in one of his left-hand fingers, which he suffered while keeping the wickets sometimes back. He is flying to Australia later this week to undergo a surgery in that finger,' SLC media manager Shane Fernando told IANS Thursday.

He said that Sangakkara would be away in Australia at least for the next two weeks.

The 30-year old left-handed frontline batsman is one of the world's premier wicketkeeper-batsmen having scored over 6,000 runs in both versions of the game.

Holding the average of 54.79 in Tests and 35.66 in the One-Day Internationals, Sangakkara has taken over 350 catches while keeping the wickets in both versions of the game.

Although Sangakkara scored a century here during the third Test against India, he failed to perform well in the recently concluded five one-day series which India won 3-2.

By P. Karunakharan (Staff Writer, © IANS)