Picture Credit: BCCI/IPL
It was a day of worry for two teams competing in the upcoming Shriram Capital Tamil Nadu Premier League.
Ruby Trichy Warriors were the most affected as two senior players —Murali Vijay and Anirudha Srikanth — pulled out citing personal reasons. All-rounder Varun Totadri and young batsman S Kesav Krishna were named as the replacements and they will have some big shoes to fill.
Both Vijay and Anirudha, who led the side last season, have been key performers for the franchise.
Defending champions Chepauk Super Gillies too had some anxious moments when wicketkeeper-batsman Ram Arvindh was ruled out of the tournament after suffering a finger injury during training.
The 20-year-old Arvindh will be replaced by left-arm spinner R Ajith Kumar, who was in their squad last season.
RTW mentor Sreekumar Nair put up a brave front and was hopeful that Varun and Kesav will fare well. “Due to unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances we couldn’t get both the stalwarts (Vijay and Anirudha) available for the tournament. We needed certain gaps to be filled so that’s one of the reasons why we’ve gone for the two replacements, Varun Totadri and Kesav. I hope they fit the bill and whenever given an opportunity they’ll do well for the franchise,” the former Kerala all-rounder said after the team’s practice session on Wednesday.
In comparison, CSG were not exactly losing sleep over Arvindh’s injury because the youngster was the third wicketkeeper in the squad with Narayan Jagadeesan and Nilesh Subramaniam ahead of him.
Arvindh suffered the injury on Sunday (July 11), revealed Karthik Dasan, the CSG physio.
“Ram Aravidh had an injury during his fielding session on 11th. He had swelling on his left little finger and we referred him the very next day to the Apollo team. In the x-ray we found out there was a fracture,” he said, adding the team management went by the medical opinion and decided to rest him.