The injury to bowler Sisanda Magala has dealt Chennai Super Kings (CSK) yet another severe setback, according to head coach Stephen Fleming. As far as the ongoing IPL is concerned, it is thought that the player would most likely be out of action for at least two weeks.
Magala bowled two overs during the match against the Rajasthan Royals and gave up 14 runs. For the franchise, which is already suffering from a large number of injuries, this is a serious setback.
Ben Stokes, Mukesh Choudhary, Deepak Chahar, and Kyle Jamieson’s injuries have already left CSK in a state of disarray. According to the most recent information, Magala only bowled two overs before departing the pitch due to a split webbing on Wednesday, April 12 during the match versus Rajasthan Royals at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
“For us again, it’s losing another player – that’s two games in a row – and we’re already pretty thin, so we’d like it [injuries] to stop. Magala’s hand was split, unfortunately, so he was unable to bowl those last two overs. And the same with Deepak Chahar in the last game, so we’re operating on pretty thin resources. But we’re not the only team to have that,” confirmed Fleming as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
Magala has headed for scans
As the medical team is still assessing Magala’s injury, he has gone for scans. In addition, CSK has not yet made a formal announcement regarding the player’s situation. Notably, the South African pacer replaced Kyle Jamieson in the CSK lineup when Jamieson was ruled out from IPL 2023.
At his base price of INR 50 lakh, Chennai Super Kings made the decision to recruit Magala. In South Africa’s just finished SA20, the pacer proven to be deadly.
Magala finished the first season of the SA20 among top bowlers, with 14 wickets taken at an 8.68 economy rate. On Monday, April 17, CSK will face off against ferocious rival Royal Challengers Bangalore.
CSK fell short against RR
It was Dhoni’s 200th match as captain, so Chennai Super Kings were expecting to have no trouble chasing down a target of 176 on a sluggish turner with plenty of dew falling. The CSK captain put in a valiant attempt by hitting two sixes in the final over, but ultimately came up just short.
“I think in the middle overs we needed a bit more strike rotation, there wasn’t much for the spinners but they had experienced spinners and we could not rotate strike. It was not that difficult and the ownership (of the loss) should come from the batters. It was good that we could reach striking distance (of the target) as we were the last pair. It really affects NRR when you get to the last phase of the tournament,” Dhoni said at the post-match presentation.
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