Chennai Super Kings will be without Dewald Brevis for their . The franchise’s head coach Stephen Fleming said the South African batsman has picked up a side strain during their training session and has been ruled out for the fixture.
, which finished at the bottom of the table last season, begin their campaign against Rajasthan on Monday. Last week the franchise revealed that their star pacer Nathan Ellis has been ruled out of the season and named Spencer Johnson as a replacement. However, it is understood that the left-arm pacer is also recovering from an injury and won’t be available for the initial legs with the franchise hopeful that he should be fit in a couple of weeks.
Before flying to , CSK announced that MS Dhoni is also unavailable for a couple of weeks because of a calf strain. The former captain, who led the franchise to five titles, is currently undergoing rehab in and hasn’t joined the team Guwahati. While CSK have readymade replacement in Sanju Samson, it is the unavailability of Brevis which would be a big blow. A hard-hitting middle-order batsman who is capable of providing impetus in the middle overs, Brevis joined the team last week and had been training with the team. However, he is understood to have injured during one of the sessions and on the eve of the game was ruled out.
“Brevis is out. He had a side injury during training. So again, he is rehabbing,” Fleming said.
Brevis injury means it could open the door for one of England’s Matt Short or Jamie Overton. Short, who is also capable of bowling off-spin, joined the team last week and has featured in their warm-up fixtures. Though he primarily bats at the top order, he can be used as a floater as well. Since it is a role that is less accustomed to, there is an option for CSK to use him in the top three and play both Kartik Sharma and Prashant Veer, two uncapped Indian players that the franchise bought for Rs 14.2 crore each.
While the injuries haven’t been ideal, Fleming said they have a big pool of players to choose from. “We have big enough squads to cover it, but it’s not just us. In fact, we’re not too bad. Other teams have really been hit hard, and I don’t think there’d be any team that has come through this without injuries. There’s a lot of cricket, and managing players and how they arrive into the squad is really important. So it’s not really what we do. It’s how they arrive, and then we’re either rehabbing or maintaining their fitness. And it’s just part, now I think, of modern-day cricket. There is so much going on and so many demands on these players, and it’s such an energetic game that there are going to be some injuries. So we’ve got a big enough squad,” Fleming said.
