Brian Lara suffered a dislocated left elbow after a collision with a Sri Lankan fielder as the West Indies lost by eight wickets in the triangular one-day tournament in Kandy.
Carl Hooper and Daren Ganga both scored half-centuries to help West Indies recover from losing Lara to reach 235 all out at the Asgiriya International Stadium. Mahela Jayawardene then hit his sixth one-day international century to guide the home side to victory off 43.1 overs.
Lara was forced out of the match and the rest of the tournament when he collided with fielder Marvan Atapattu at the non-striker's end. Lara set off for a quick single and Atapattu, fielding the ball in the covers, ran in to throw the wicket down. The players ran into each other and Lara clutched his left arm in agony.
Lara was carried off on a stretcher and taken to Kandy General Hospital for x-rays from where he was transferred by helicopter to Colombo. West Indies manager, Ricky Skerritt, who accompanied the player to hospital said: 'Brian Lara is resting comfortably in the hospital, still somewhat under the anaesthetic, and has a dislocated elbow on his left arm.
'There is no break and he has been advised to have his arm in a cast for no less than two weeks, then a determination will be made as to his ability to have physiotherapy. As of now, there are no plans of sending him home.'
Lara was on 24 at the time, having scored his runs off 29 balls with four fours, and West Indies were 60 for one in the eleventh over.
West Indies recovered from losing Lara, with Ganga and skipper Hooper sharing a third-wicket partnership of 69 off 102 balls. The stand was broken by the part-time spinner Russel Arnold, who had Ganga caught behind for 52.
Hooper held the innings together until the forty-fourth over, before he holed out to Upul Chandana at long-off off Sanath Jayasuriya. Hooper made 72 off 98 balls with four fours. With his dismissal, the West Indies scoring rate dropped and they lost their last five wickets for 30 runs in 27 balls.
Jayawardene shared an unbroken third-wicket partnership of 187 off 189 balls with Atapattu to steer Sri Lanka home. He remained unbeaten on 106, scored off 94 balls with two sixes and eight fours. Atapattu was 82 not out made off 119 balls with two sixes and six fours.
Sri Lanka had already qualified for the final. The final match between West Indies and Zimbabwe today was deciding who the other finalist would be on Wednesday.
The accident is the second setback for Lara this year. The Trinidadian, who holds the record for the highest Test score, was out for months with a hamstring injury before he was included on the West Indies squad for the Sri Lanka tour. The 32-year-old left-hander was forced to pull out of the last West Indies series in Zimbabwe in June.
His withdrawal from the Zimbabwe tour was the second time in two years that Lara had pulled out from the West Indies team, triggering speculation over his future.
He abruptly resigned as captain last year before a home series against Zimbabwe, blaming 'moderate success and devastating failure' during his two years at the helm. He then took a four-month break from the game 'to rebuild all facets of my game so as to sustain the remainder of my cricketing career'.