Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) will take on table toppers Gujarat Titans (GT) in the last Indian Premier League 2023 (IPL) group stage fixture on Sunday, May 21. But they will be without the services of star pacer Josh Hazlewood who is ruled out of the remainder of the tournament with an injury. The team's director of operation Mike Hesson confirmed Hazlewood's injury and also revealed that the Australian star will miss the potential playoff games as well.
"Hazlewood is about to jump on an airplane home. Pretty good chance he's not going to be playing tomorrow. Unfortunately, he's got the recurrence of the injury," RCB's director of cricket operations Mike Hesson said in a press conference on Saturday evening.
Hazlewood missed considerable matches in the early stages of the tournament as he was recovering from an Achilles tendinitis injury he picked during Sydney Test against South Africa in January. He also missed the entire Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 as his return was delayed due to a slow recovery. Hazlewood is now due for the upcoming WTC final against India and then for Ashes, so, the management is not pushing the right-arm pacer to play the remaining IPL games.
At IPL 2023, his first game came against Lucknow Super Giants on May 1, where he took two wickets for 15 to help RCB defend 126 runs. Hazlewood featured in two more games but was not part of RCB's last two matches. South African pacer Wayne Parnell replaced Hazlewood in the last two games and is likely to keep his place in the playing XI for the upcoming game against Gujarat Titans at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday evening.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) updated squad: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis(c), Glenn Maxwell, Mahipal Lomror, Michael Bracewell, Anuj Rawat(w), Shahbaz Ahmed, Wayne Parnell, Harshal Patel, Karn Sharma, Mohammed Siraj, Dinesh Karthik, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Himanshu Sharma, Suyash Prabhudessai, Kedar Jadhav, Siddarth Kaul, Wanindu Hasaranga, Finn Allen, Manoj Bhandage, Akash Deep, Rajan Kumar, Avinash Singh, Sonu Yadav
