Mumbai Indians announcing pace bowler Jason Behrendorff's replacement on Monday (March 18) evening surprised everyone. Luke Wood is set to replace Behrendorff who was one of the retained players from the last season. The latter won Australia's T20I player of the year 2023 award for his excellent show at the international level and was hoping to sneak into the T20 World Cup squad with a good show in the cash-rich league.
But a freak injury has ruled the left-arm fast bowler out of action for eight weeks. Interestingly, he has sustained the injury while batting as the ball hit him just above the ankle. Behrendorff, due to the freakish training accident last week, has suffered a fractured left fibula that will now keep him on the sidelines for a couple of months despite not requiring surgery.
It is a major blow to Mumbai Indians as well who sturggled big time with the ball last season even as Jason Behrendorff picked 14 wickets in 12 matches. Coming back to the cricketer, his hopes of playing the T20 World Cup have also more or less ended now as his aim now will be to recover in time for the T20 Blast that will commence on May 31.
Behrendorff was being looked at as a back-up option for Mitchell Starc but now is likely to go down in the pecking order. Meanwhile, MI will be hoping that Luke Wood who is also a left-arm pacer clicks big time for them if he gets a chance. Wood is coming off a decent show in other T20 leagues and has picked 147 wickets in 140 T20 matches. He has also played five T20Is for England so far.
