5 players who could replace Axar Patel for the upcoming ODI series against England
The Indian cricket team were dealt a further blow earlier today as Axar Patel was ruled out of the upcoming ODI series against England due to a thumb injury. This news came in after it was revealed that India might go into the series without the services of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Jayant Yadav.
Ashwin is suffering from a sports hernia that ruled him out of Tamil Nadu’s Ranji Trophy quarter-finals and semi-finals while Jayant is nursing a hamstring injury that kept him out of the fifth Test against England in Chennai. Jadeja, on the other hand, is most likely to be rested for the Tests against Bangladesh and Australia.
With his injury, Axar joins a long list of Indians who are injured. Mohammad Shami, Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya, and Ajinkya Rahane are the other cricketers who are currently injured
With this long list of injuries and absentees, here are the 5 bowlers who could probably be included in the limited over series against the Englishmen which begins on January 15th.
#5 Iqbal Abdulla
One of the stars of the Indian U-19 world cup winning side of 2008 under Virat Kohli’s captaincy, Iqbal Abdulla was touted as the next big spinner in Indian cricket. Unfortunately, he was not given a chance to prove himself on the big stage despite performing well for Mumbai at the first-class level.
After playing for Mumbai for 8 years between 2008 and 2015, he shifted allegiances when he moved to Kerala this season and picked up 26 wickets in 9 matches. He performed exceptionally well with the bat too as he smashed his way to a career-high score of 159 not out against Hyderabad in this edition of the Ranji Trophy.