Dwayne Bravo ruled out of IPL due to injury

It came as a shock for the Gujarat Lions team when Dwayne Bravo was ruled out of the entire IPL 10 season because of his long sustained hamstring injury. Dwayne Bravo himself confirmed the news on Sunday (23 April) on twitter.

The 33-year-old West Indian suffered the injury while playing for the Melbourne Renegades in BBL on the 29 of December 2016 against the Perth Scorchers. He has been in rehabilitation for over 3 months now and is recovering fast. But his concerns towards his fitness made him take this massive decision. “While recovery is going well and I have made vast improvement and have participated in team trainings with the Lions, my body is not ready to perform at its fullest potential,” Bravo said.

Bravo has played for the Chennai Super Kings before 2016 and was an integral part of their bowling attack as well as their batting. He has played in 6 IPL final matches which are enough credential to prove his significance in a T20 side.

The Gujarat Lions had a very favourable last season by finishing at the top of the table in the league stage. Dwayne Bravo was a big contributor to their success by being their second highest wicket taker and bagging 17 wickets to his name. This season, the Gujarat Lions already on the bottom of the league table have some serious thinking to do as their middle order have time and again failed to prove their worth and the absence of Dwayne Bravo from the entire tournament will only make things worse.

Suresh Raina, the captain of the GL side was very positive of Bravo joining them by the second half of the league. But Bravo’s declaration after their loss against the Kings XI Punjab negated all expectations. It would be interesting to see how Raina manages to cope with this loss and tries to fight back to win a place in the playoffs.