IPL 2024, DC vs SRH: Ishant Sharma Suffers from Back Spasm Minutes Before Return from Ankle Injury

Ishant Sharma suffered a back spasm just minutes before Delhi Capitals (DC) skipper Rishabh Pant won the toss and elected to field first against Pat Cummins’ Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in their 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL) clash at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Saturday.

IPL 2024: Delhi Capitals vs Sunrisers Hyderabad – LIVE

The Indian veteran pacer looked set to play after returning from an injury, that he suffered while fielding in DC’s opening match against Punjab King (PBKS).

“I have to be thankful to Patrick (Farhart, the DC physio), the day I twisted my ankle, myself and him stayed up the entire night as icing had to be applied. Even now, I have to take 3 pills a day so that I don’t feel the pain during either practice or in the match,” Ishant told the broadcaster ahead of the match.

But at the toss, Pant said that Ishant would have to stay out of action for the clash against SRH as he opted to bowl first.

“We’re going to bowl first. Wicket looks pretty good, we would like to chase because we are playing more as a batting unit. We have more batters. Maybe there will be dew. The only thing we said is ‘stay in the contest’. Yes they’ve been playing really good cricket but you can’t let them get away with it. Ground doesn’t matter, end of the day you have to play good cricket. We’re looking to improve each and every match. Instead of Sumit, Lalit comes in. Instead of Ishant, who had a back spasm just 5 minutes back, Nortje comes in,” Pant said.

“We were thinking of having a bowl first as well, looks like a good wicket. The way the boys have been batting, we know teams are going to come hard at us. Same batting lineup, we’ll have a look at the bowling a little later on,” said Cummins.

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DC vs SRH – Playing XIs

Delhi Capitals: David Warner, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Abishek Porel, Rishabh Pant(WK/C), Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel, Lalit Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Anrich Nortje, Khaleel Ahmed, Mukesh Kumar

SUBs – Prithvi Shaw, Shai Hope, Pravin Dubey, Rasikh Dar and Sumit Kumar.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen(WK), Abdul Samad, Nitish Reddy, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins(C), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, T Natarajan

SUBs – Umran Malik, Anmolpreet Singh, Akash Singh, Glenn Phillips and Washington Sundar