Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], April 2 (ANI): Ahead of his side’s Indian Premier League (IPL) match against Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Punjab Kings assistant coach Brad Haddin said that skipper Shreyas Iyer suffered some swelling in his wrist after a nasty hit during the last match and expressed optimism that he would be ready for the clash against the Men in Yellow.
PBKS will be aiming to carry the winning momentum forward as they meet a wounded CSK, who faced a humiliating loss to Rajasthan Royals (RR) in their campaign opener at Guwahati. PBKS will be breathing a massive sigh of relief as Iyer, who received a nasty hit on his wrist from a Cooper Connolly drive at the non-striker’s hand, has not suffered a lot of harm on his hand and could be cleared for the CSK clash.
Providing an update on Shreyas Iyer who was injured in the previous match, Haddin said as quoted by PBKS press release, “There is no break (in the bone), which is a good thing. Now it is just about getting the swelling down and getting the movement back in the hand, so he should be right for tomorrow.”
Haddin also hailed Connolly’s impact in the last game, where his unbeaten 72* in 44 balls, with five fours and five sixes took PBKS to a successful chase of 163 runs after they sunk to 118/6 at one point from 110/2.
Speaking about Connolly’s impact, Haddin said, “We have known about Cooper Connolly in Australia for some time. We were pretty keen to get him early in the auction and spoke early in our preparation about bringing him in before everyone could get a real look at how good he was.”
“I think everyone got a taste of the maturity he has with the bat and saw the way he controlled the innings in the first game. It was his first IPL game under pressure with things going on around him, but we’ve known about that ability for a long time, and I think everyone got the opportunity to see his skills.”
Speaking about Xavier Bartlett’s development, Haddin said, “If you look closely at Xavier Bartlett’s game, he has improved a lot over the last 12 months. He started predominantly as a new-ball bowler, but he has developed a really good game at the end of an innings as well.”
He added, “His batting has come a long way over the last 12 months. He’s a reliable lower-order hitter now, and we saw that when the pressure was on in the last game.”
During the last game, Barlett had delivered a spell of 0/36 in four overs and hammered a quickfire 11* in five balls with a six to support Connolly in the run-chase.
Speaking about the squad balance, Haddin said, “We have got great flexibility in our squad. We have spent a lot of time over the last two years trying to get that balance right so we can cover different surfaces in the IPL.”
On assessing the conditions at the venue, he added, “We will look at all the numbers around the surface here. There is a lot of data on how it plays and whether you need to play an extra spinner. The wicket has become a bit flatter over time, and there is more grass on it at the moment than we have seen previously, so we will probably make a judgement call after training today. But as I said before, we are very lucky with the flexibility in our squad, so we’re not too worried about what surface we will get.”
Reflecting on the team’s start to the tournament, Haddin said, “We are very happy. It is important to get your tournament started in the right way. There’s room for improvement in what we did in the first game, but we’re very pleased with the way the game panned out in the end.” (ANI)
