The Chennai Super Kings (CSK) suffered another dent in their pace bowling department as seamer Deepak Chahar suffered a hamstring injury during their game against Mumbai Indians (MI) on Saturday evening.
Deepak Chahar left the field at the Wankhede stadium after bowling the first over of the match. After delivering the 5th ball of the first over, Deepak looked in discomfort and called for the physio. Somehow, he managed to bowl the last ball of the over – he hobbled and bowled a slower delivery which Rohit Sharma spanked for a four – and left the field after completing his first over, leaving MS Dhoni and CSK worried.
Despite the absence of the injured Ben Stokes and the ill Moeen Ali, fortunately, MS Dhoni had other good options in the XI to complete the 20 overs – Santner, Magala, Jadeja, and Pretorius all bowled 4 overs each and Deshpande bowled 3 overs – and all of them bowled well to restrict MI to 157.
Former CSK star Suresh Raina believes that Chahar will miss at least “4-5 games” but many fans feel the pacer will be out of action for a longer period due to his latest hamstring injury and his history with other injuries in the past year.
Speaking on Jio Cinema, Raina said, “It seems Deepak Chahar will be out for 4-5 games. It looks like he has again sustained a hamstring injury; he looked in discomfort. All the other IPL venues are far off from Chennai, and there will be a lot of travel involved.”
Chahar has had a troublesome time with injuries in the past year. Signed by CSK for INR 14 crore in the IPL 2022 mega-auction, he missed the entire 2022 IPL due to a back injury. While rehabbing at the NCA, he also sustained a side strain.
Later in 2022, he returned to the Indian team after about 6 months, but, after playing a few games, his back injury resurfaced, and he’s only made his comeback to action through IPL 2023. And now he picked up this hamstring injury.
In his first two matches of IPL 2023, CSK Speedster bowled 8 wicketless overs for 84 runs, and it seems like his campaign will end without a wicket.
