Why are Mustafizur Rahman and Matheesha Pathirana not playing IPL 2024 Match 53 between PBKS vs CSK?

Matheesha Pathirana and Mustafizur Rahman. (Source -Twitter/X)

In this article, we look at Why are Mustafizur Rahman and Matheesha Pathirana not playing IPL 2024 Match 53 between PBKS vs CSK? Dharamsala on Sunday, May 5. Punjab Kings (PBKS) are clashing with the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in match 53 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 at the HPCA. It is an afternoon game and the toss was won by the PBKS skipper Sam Curran who decided to bowl first.

Curran shared that they were going into this game without making any changes to their previous match’s XI. He believed that the conditions will not change much for the duration of the game and so he decided to chase on this high-altitude ground.

“We’re going to bowl. Day game, try and see how it plays and chase it down. We’ve got the same team. We’ve had two really good wins with the same team. Conditions should be fairly even throughout, it’s about batting, bowling and fielding well,” said Curran at the toss.

On the other hand, Ruturaj Gaikwad revealed that Mustafizur Rahman has been replaced with Mitchell Santner as the Bangladeshi pacer has gone back home for national duties. Matheesha Pathirana continues to miss being in the Playing XI. He had also missed the previous match due to a niggle and the word has just come in that he has returned home to recover from a hamstring injury.

“Chennai Super Kings pacer Matheesha Pathirana is nursing a hamstring injury and will be returning to Sri Lanka for further recovery,” said CSK in their press release.

Meanwhile, Gaikwad lost another toss, 10 in 11 matches, but seemed unfazed by it at the toss.

“We’ve just stuck to our process and doing little things right. We don’t look at the track record of the opposition, we focus on ourselves and see what we can do right. This season there have been a lot of injuries, flus and forced changes so we’ve had to tinker with our team. I’d say losing 10 tosses but winning five games is a positive,” said Gaikwad.

Playing XIs –

Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Ajinkya Rahane, Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Moeen Ali, MS Dhoni (wk), Mitchell Santner, Shardul Thakur, Tushar Deshpande, Richard Gleeson

Impact Players: Sameer Rizvi, Mukesh Choudhary, Simarjeet Singh, Shaik Rasheed, Prashant Solanki