Back injury raises doubts over Deepak Chahar’s IPL return

It seems nothing is going well for the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) as the Yellow Brigade, who has already lost four games in a row, is set to miss the services of Deepak Chahar for a larger part of the ongoing season.

According to several reports, Deepak’s potential return to the current IPL season remains doubtful after the India and Chennai Super Kings strike bowler suffered a back injury during his rehab at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.

Althought the gravity of his injury remains to be ascertained, it has been learned that the Ravindra Jadeja-led side is yet to get a formal report from BCCI.

Notably, Deepak has been at the NCA for more than a month now.

The CSK pacer was recovering from the quadricep tear he picked during India’s T20I series against West Indies in February this year.

Earlier, the initial assessment by the NCA physios had projected that the CSK frontline pacer would be forced to miss a major chunk of the IPL. However, the CSK team management was optimistic of his return in late April.

Chahar’s absence has already hurt CSK’s journey in the ongoing season as they have lost all of its four matches so far in the tournament. In Deepak’s absence, the CSK has tried Mukesh Choudhary, Tushar Deshpande, Adam Milne and Chris Jordan with the new ball however, all of them have struggled to get the breakthroughs.

Notably, CSK had spent a massive amount of Rs 14 crore (approx. US $1.84 million) for Deepak at the IPL 2022 auction however, they now seem to struggle in his absence as Mukesh Choudhary, Tushar Deshpande, Adam Milne and Chris Jordan have not been able to provide them with the required control in the early stages of the four matches it played so far.

The Jadeja-led side will now be up against the Faf du Plessis-led Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in their fifth game of the season at the Dr DY Patil Sports Academy in Navi Mumbai on Tuesday (April 12).

After losing their campaign opener against Punjab Kings (PBKS) by five wickets, RCB has won all of their next three games and sits at the third place in the ten-team points table with six points in their kitty. On the other hand, the Yellow Brigade is placed at the bottom of the points-table and is yet to register its first win in the current season.

News Desk

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