MS Dhoni is the captain of the Pune SuperGiants. Their four best foreign stars Kevin Pietersen, Faf Du Plessis, Mitchell Marsh and Steve Smith will not be playing the IPL any more this season due to injury.
IPL nine has so far seen a very high proportion of injured players, so much so that a brilliant team of match winners and can form a match-winning team of their own.
Let us see who they are?
Openers
Lendl Simmons and Aaron Finch. Simmons was the best batsman for Mumbai Indians last IPL. A back injury kept him out until the semi-finals of World T20 when he returned to knock India out in his home ground of Wankhede.
Sadly for MI , the injury resurfaced and he is out of IPL nine
Aaron Finch, after starting so well for the new Gujarat team is out with hamstring injury.
Middle order batsmen
Kevin Pietersen, Steve Smith and Faf du Plessis. KP was expected to be one of the stars for Dhoni’s team. The former English star too got injured just day after he spoke of his dreams of playing Test cricket for South Africa after a couple of years.
Similarly Faf Du Plessis, a key player for Dhoni and his team, is out with a broken finger. One more blow to Dhoni and his team was the loss of Aussie Skipper Steve Smith, almost immediately after scoring a blistering 100.
All rounder
Mitchell Marsh is a key player as he both bats and bowls well. Unfortunately he has joined the injury list.
Bowlers
Lasith Malinga, a key player for Mumbai Indians is out due to a persistent knee injury, as is Mitchell Starc. Samuel Badree played a key role in West Indies T20 triumph and also suffered a shoulder injury.
Starc, Badree and Malinga were out before the tournament started. Starc and Badree being injured leaves his team batting heavy and with no bowling firepower.
The team looks pretty impressive, doesn’t it? There is no wicketkeeper but I don’t want to tempt fate.
Replacements
The quality of replacements are excellent and in one or two cases the replacement may actually be better than the original injured player. Prolific Aussie Usmaan Khawaja, Kiwi opener Martin Guptill, quicks Jerome Taylor and Chris Jordan and South African Chinaman bowler Tabraiz Shamsi are the replacements so far.
Why so many injuries
This is indeed a worrying thought. Several thoughts come to mind. Is too much cricket being played? Is T20 too intense? Is there not a sufficient implementation of the rotation policy?
These are all worrying questions. What are the answers?
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