Injuries hit IPL pace unit: KKR, SRH, RCB face selection a headache

Top pacers injured or unavailable near start of game intense pulsed light It could keep the team’s coaches and support staff up at night. While Lucknow Supergiants have been one of the worst-affected teams over the years, this time around three teams are struggling with their pace resources – Kolkata Knight Riders, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Royal Challengers Bangalore. For KKR, two of their top pacers – Harshit Rana and Matheesha Pathirana – are dealing with injuries. They also lost Mustafizur Rahman due to non-cricketing reasons, but they drafted Blessed Muzarabani in Zimbabwe to replace him. SRH are also in a sticky situation over their skipper’s health Pat Cummins But it is still uncertain whether RCB will get their spearhead Josh Hazlewood from the start of the game.

toy Take a look at how things might play out for these teams.KKR faces double jeopardyKKR’s India star pacer Harshit Rana will miss most of the IPL due to knee surgery. Despite the threat of missing even the entire IPL season, the management did not name a replacement immediately, hoping that the 24-year-old would be able to adapt to business developments. KKR have some Indian pacers in Vaibhav Arora and Akash Deep who have to step up along with Muzarabani and Cameron Green. Which brings us to their second injury concern, Matheesha Pathirana. The three-time champions paid Rs 18 crore for the former CSK bowler, who is known to be injury-prone. He missed most of the T20 World Cup due to a calf injury, but reports suggest that he will recover in time to play in the IPL. But considering his precarious health, it would be a miracle if Patialana can be fit for the most part. Changes in his movement after injury have led to a decrease in his effectiveness as a bowler, which is also concerning for the 2024 champions.SRH captain changed?SRH’s pace attack is centered around Pat Cummins, who also captains the team. But the Australia Test captain is still recovering from a back injury which, while not fully recovered, was aggravated while playing the Ashes Test. It is unclear when he will be fit and available and the buzz is that SRH may hand over the captaincy to Ishan Kishan, who has performed quite well with the bat in the T20 World Cup. Absolutely no one in SRH Attack can match the quality of the Cummins T20. The likes of Shivam Mavi, Jaydev Unadkat and Ehsan Malinga have performed reasonably well, but if Cummins is unavailable for a long time, it could be a big challenge for SRH despite having a good batting line-up.RCB doesn’t have enough JoshJosh Hazlewood is still recovering from hamstring and Achilles injuries and has not played cricket for some time. The Australian took 22 wickets at an average of 17.54 last year as RCB lifted the title for the first time, and it was his key-hitting ability that made a big impact. Pacemakers are racing against time to get fit and New Zealand pacer Jacob Duffy is likely to play in his absence.Duffy, while a capable bowler, poses no real threat on Indian pitches and the RCB management is hoping that Hazlewood will return in time to lead the attack with quality support from Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Yash Dayal.