Royal Challengers Bengaluru director Mo Bobat said skipper Rajat Patidar has been recuperating really fast from his finger injury, and the swelling has gone down considerably. Patidar batted in the nets on Thursday and Friday without wearing the protective splint, raising hopes of his availability for the match against Kolkata Knight Riders on Saturday. “Rajat’s going well. He had an injury to his hand, but he’s been building up ever so slowly. For him, probably the disruption (halting of IPL because of Indo-Pak border tension) gave a few more days to get through that early healing, for the swelling to go down, and for him to get used to picking up a bat again.
“He’s practised the last few days and he’s going well,” said Bobat in the pre-match press meet here.
Patidar had suffered the injury during RCB’s home game against Chennai Super Kings a few days back.
Pacer Josh Hazlewood, who is nursing a shoulder injury, has not rejoined the RCB and Bobat said the team is having conversations with Cricket Australia for updates.
“Josh is our only player not here at the moment. He’s recovering from his shoulder niggle that he had. He’s doing that with Cricket Australia.
“Our medical team and their medical teams have been liaising on what that detail looks like and he’s just taking that day by day,” he said.
The rescheduling of IPL has thrown a spanner in the strategising part of teams in terms of player availability. RCB will lose Jacob Bethel and Lungi Ngidi soon because of their national commitments, and Bobat said they have enough time to think about replacements.
“I’m sure all the teams experienced the same thing. Once your players have gone home and once the dates have been extended, that creates a bit of uncertainty. We spoke quite a lot with our overseas guys even before they went. Most of them were pretty adamant that they were keen to come back and finish the job off.
“Obviously, we’ll lose Jacob Bethel after a couple of games and we’ll lose Lungi Ngidi after a couple of games. There’s an obvious impact there. In time, we’ll give a little bit of thought to those replacements and we’ll try and look at who might be able to come in to shore up those positions,” he explained.
Bobat said the unexpected break was helpful for players to catch their breath amidst the hectic IPL schedule and relink with their families.
“It was an unusual few days for everybody. For me, personally, there was lots to sort out and it was a busy few days. For many of our lads, it was a well-earned rest. So quite a few of them enjoyed getting home, seeing family, even if it’s just for a couple of days.
“And, actually, we were saying even yesterday, the boys came in with a lot of energy for their practice. So as far as the group is concerned, it looks to be in a really good place,” he added.
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