These aren’t good times for the Gujarat Lions. The franchise, which is in its last Indian Premier League (IPL) season, will miss the services of the West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo for the rest of the season.
Bravo, who has been nursing an injury, has missed all the games of the season so far, and on Sunday, Gujarat Lions skipper Suresh Raina confirmed that the team is set to suffer the major blow.
“He (Bravo) has been doing proper rehab and it might take three-four weeks, so he might be out of the tournament,” Raina told before the side’s game against Kings XI Punjab. The captain also admitted the side will be seeking a replacement for the West Indies cricketer.
Even team owner Keshav Bensal confirmed the development. In a tweet, Bansal made it clear that the West Indies cricketer will not be available for consideration. "Going to miss this Champion! Unfortunately he has been ruled out this season due to injury! I wish him all the best for a speedy recovery!," Bansal tweeted, with a picture of the West Indies cricketer.
Before the season started, the pins were hoped on Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja. While Jadeja missed the first couple of games, there was uncertainty over Bravo’s availability. Before the tournament started, in an interview to Sportstar , Raina had admitted that the team was looking forward to bank in on Bravo’s experience. But with things not going its way, the Gujarat camp will have to look for an alternative at the quickest.
After the sides loss against Kings XI Punjab, coach Brad Hodge lamented on what Bravo's absence meant for the team in despair. “We gave Bravo every opportunity to be fit. Unfortunately, he just ran out of time as well. I guess whatever it takes, when you take someone like that out of the side – especially where he performed so well last year – was always gonna hurt us,” Hodge said.
“But that's the way sport is. We try and fill the void with (James) Faulkner and (Andrew) Tye and they're pretty good players as well. But Champion (Bravo) is a champion player. He's been performing in the IPL for a decade now and done very well.”
Hodge admitted that the Lions needed to pull up their socks if the team was hoping for a repeat of last year's cut-off to the Playoffs. “This one's a tough loss because we are running out of time. We are definitely playing catch-up but I do know that if these guys do fire, then we can certainly put it together like we did last year,” he said. “We were on a run last year, winning six games in a row and we need to do something like that again. So it can be done, it's possible and it's the same bunch of guys, minus Bravo, from last year. They can do it.”
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