With less than a week to go before the Indian Premier League kicks off, defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) suffered a huge blow in their first match against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on March 22. times of indiaStar pacer Matheesha Patirana will be out for four to five weeks with a hamstring injury. Patialana has been out of action since picking up an injury in the second T20I against Bangladesh in Sylhet on March 6 and left before the end of his tenure.

Pathirana played an important role in CSK’s title-winning campaign in the last IPL, taking 19 wickets in 12 games.

“Level 1 hamstrings usually take close to two weeks to fully recover. Therefore, it remains to be seen when Patialana will join the team and it is difficult to tell at this stage whether he will be able to play in the first few games,” an IPL source sources told PTI.

CSK have been hit by injuries before the start of the season, with New Zealand opener Devin Conway expected to miss at least the first half of the game after undergoing thumb surgery. Convis suffered a finger injury during New Zealand’s third T20I against Australia.

CSK will face RCB in the first match of IPL 2024 on March 22 in Chepauk.

CSK IPL squad: MS Dhoni (C), Moeen Ali, Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande, Shivam Dube, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajay Mandal, Mukesh Choudhary, Matheesha Pathirana, Ajinkya Rahane, Shaik Rasheed, Mitchell Santner, Simarjeet Singh, Nishant Sindhu, Prashant Solanki, Maheesh Theekshana, Rachin Ravindra, Shardul Thakur, Daryl Mitchell, Sameer Rizvi, Mustafizur Rahman, Avanish Rao Aravelly.

(with ANI input)