Chennai Super Kings' star overseas signing Devon Conway has been ruled out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 season with a fracture to his left thumb. The defending champions have therefore signed England's right-arm medium pacer Richard Gleeson as Conway's replacement for the rest of the season at his reserve price of Rs 50 lakhs.
Conway's absence may hurt Chennai in the longer run as he was the third-leading run-getter of IPL 2023. The southpaw scored 672 runs for CSK and was behind Shubman Gill (890 runs) and Faf du Plessis (730 runs) on the run accumulators list.
Conway's contribution played an instrumental role in helping Chennai claim their fifth IPL title. The southpaw made his IPL debut for Chennai in the 2022 edition and scored 252 runs in seven games at an average of 42.00. His strike rate of 145.66 was also impressive and his performance gave the team management a genuine reason to believe in his abilities.
On the other hand, Gleeson is a domestic veteran and a capped England cricketer. Gleeson, 36, has represented England in six T20Is and claimed nine wickets thus far. He made his T20I debut for the Three Lions against India at Edgbaston in Birmingham on July 9, 2022.
Though short on international experience, the Lancashire-born has played T20 cricket around the world for sides like Rangpur Riders in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash League (BBL) and Peshawar Zalmi in the Pakistan Super League (PSL).
Chennai Super Kings IPL 2024 squad
Rachin Ravindra, Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Ajinkya Rahane, Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Sameer Rizvi, MS Dhoni (wk), Shardul Thakur, Tushar Deshpande, Mustafizur Rahman, Matheesha Pathirana, Nishant Sindhu, Mitchell Santner, Moeen Ali, Shaik Rasheed, Maheesh Theekshana, Deepak Chahar, Mukesh Choudhary, Devon Conway, Ajay Jadav Mandal, Prashant Solanki, Simarjeet Singh, RS Hangargekar, Aravelly Avanish, Richard Gleeson.
