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Kedar Jadhav has given India a scare with less than a month for the World Cup to begin, by picking a shoulder injury while fielding during Chennai Super Kings’ clash against Kings XI Punjab on Sunday. Jadhav is unlikely to play in Super Kings’ remaining matches in the IPL.
“Kedar Jadhav’s getting an x-ray and a scan tomorrow,” Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming said after the match. “We’re hopeful for him. I don’t think we’ll see him again in this tournament for us. So now his attention will turn to what it looks like for the World Cup. He’s in some discomfort but we just need to be accurate with our assessments tomorrow. Fingers crossed that it’s nothing too serious but it didn’t look that good.”
Jadhav was fielding near the deep square leg boundary when he injured his left shoulder on the second ball of the 14th over, bowled by Dwayne Bravo. Jadhav dived to his left while trying to stop an overthrow from long-off after Nicholas Pooran drove the ball down the ground and came back for a second run, and Bravo failed to collect the throw from Ravindra Jadeja. Jadhav immediately winced in pain after the dive and walked over the boundary ropes to be attended to by Super Kings physio Tommy Simsek. Jadhav did not take field for the rest of the innings with M Vijay coming in as the substitute. To add to Super Kings’ woes, Vijay spilled a straightforward catch at point from Pooran the very next delivery.
The Indian team management and selectors will hope the injury is not serious considering the squad will depart for the UK on May 22 with India playing their first group match on June 5 against South Africa. In case Jadhav’s injury rules him out of the World Cup, the selectors will look at the back-up pool of Ambati Rayudu, Rishabh Pant and Axar Patel.
Unfortunately for Super Kings, Jadhav had injured himself during the IPL last year too. He had sustained a hamstring tear in the tournament opener against Mumbai Indians and was then ruled out of the remainder of the tournament. This time’s injury is likely to make him miss the playoffs for Super Kings.
More to follow…
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