On 15th August, Suresh Raina fans received a major disappointment as he announced his retirement from international cricket.
Fans would have been heartened to see the champion batsman in full-flow during the 2020 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
However, the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), over the weekend, received a significant blow to their campaign with the departure of Raina.
There has been a lot of mystery surrounding Raina’s abrupt exit from the tournament. On Sunday, CSK owner N Srinivasan came up with a surprising statement regarding Raina’s ‘Prima Donna’ attitude.
Moreover, Srinivasan ensured that CSK captain MS Dhoni is not perturbed with Raina’s pulling out of the tournament.
Now, former Indian leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan has named the replacement of Raina for the upcoming tournament.
“In T20s, most teams employ leg-spinners to trouble the right-handers. But then, a left-hander could negotiate with leggies easily. So the loss of such an established batsman like Raina would hurt CSK,” Sivaramakrishnan told the Times of India.
“But they have a utility player in Curran and could send the southpaw up the order. He can bat at No. 3 and give CSK those useful runs,” he added.
After a decent stint with Kings XI Punjab (KXIP), the CSK franchise managed to bag the services of Sam Curran at a whopping price of INR 5.5 crores.
“Over the years, we have also seen Dhoni preferring left-arm pacers. Curran can come in handy since he can swing the ball in the air and is a very enthusiastic fielder,” the cricket-turned-commentator concluded.
Curran, for KXIP, went on to pick ten wickets and scored 95 runs, with the highest score of 55*. He also clinched a hat-trick during one of his outings for the Preity Zinta co-owned franchise.
Earlier, CSK players – Deepak Chahar and Ruturaj Gaekwad – were diagnosed as coronavirus positive.
As a result, the quarantine period of CSK has now been extended until 6th September.