After finishing at the bottom of the points table for the first time in their history in IPL 2022, the Mumbai Indians made a big-money signing at the IPL 2023 auction: Cameron Green, for whom the five-time champions happily splashed out INR 17.5 crore, making the 23-year-old Australian all-rounder the second-most expensive player ever in the IPL, after Sam Curran, who was bought by Punjab Kings in the same auction for INR 18.5 crore.
However, both Green and MI have been given a setback now following the all-rounder sustaining a finger injury in the in the Boxing Day Test against South Africa at the MCG.
While Green is expected to be fit in a month’s time, and is likely to start in the Border-Gavaskar Test series against India that will be played in February-March, the Cricket Australia (CA) board has given a strict addendum that Green will not be allowed to bowl for the first couple of weeks in the IPL, a decision which the CA and their medical team has taken considering the management of his workload.
Cameron Green is Australia’s main all-rounder in Test cricket, and has played 18 Tests since making his debut not too long ago, in the last BGT series, in December 2020.
Times of India has reported that Cameron Green will have to play only as a batsman in the IPL 2023 until April 13.
The 4-Test series in India will run from February 9 to March 13 and the IPL 2023 is expected to start on March 31 or April 1st.
On the morning of the auction, BCCI’s CEO and IPL COO Hemang Amin wrote in a note to the franchises, “Cricket Australia has informed this morning that Cameron Green will be fully available. However, if he featured in all the four Test matches of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Green will not be able to bowl for four weeks from the conclusion of the fourth Test scheduled from 9th March to 13th March, 2023.”
The right-hander is currently nursing a finger injury that he sustained at the MCG, where Green took a five-wicket haul. He was struck on his right index finger from a fast delivery from Protea pacer Anrich Nortje and retired hurt on that day, but returned to bat the next morning and compiled a half-century.
He flew home to Perth on Thursday while the game was still going to recover from a broken index finger. Green has been ruled out of the Sydney Test against South Africa at the start of the new year.
