Chennai Super Kings are not in a good shape with less than a week to go for the start of the Indian Premier League. After Josh Hazlewood pulled out of the lucrative tournament, due to the sharp rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra. Since CSK has been looking for his replacement. According to a report in TOI, the Australian pacer Billy Stanlake was approached by CSK, but he turned down the offer for the same reason.
As per the same report, other fringe players were also approached by the CSK management, but no one came up with a positive reply. This means CSK is in a fix, something similar to last year. To make matters worse, a member of the content team has tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
“With as many as three players already affected with the novel coronavirus — Nitish Rana (now recovered), Axar Patel and Devdutt Padikkal — along with many states (mainly Maharashtra) showing a regular spike in cases, the CSK franchise is struggling to sign a new recruit in place of Hazlewood.” an insider at CSK said.
“Many of them have contracts with English county teams and the permissions aren’t forthcoming due to the rising number of Covid cases,” a source close to the developments told TOI. However, CSK haven’t lost hope and are trying hard to rope in a decent replacement. “We may have to go for a wildcard and may get one soon enough. But the problems do persist,” the source added.
