Lockie Ferguson - (AP)
On Tuesday, April 15, Punjab Kings will lock horns against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Mullanpur Stadium. Ahead of the crucial match, Punjab have dealt a heavy blow as Lockie Ferguson has been ruled out because of injury for indefenite period.
Notably, the Kiwi seamer suffered the injury during Punjab's clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad, where the right-arm seamer pulled his hamstring and walked off the field in pain. PBKS have not announced any replacements, and this article will shed light on players who can replace Ferguson in the upcoming match against KKR.
1. Xavier Bartlett
The front-runner to replace Ferguson is Australia's Xavier Bartlett. The Australia seamer was bought in for 80 lakhs at the IPL 2025 mega- auction.
Bartlett had a great Big Bash League 2024 and took 12 wickets in nine innings. Lets's look at his stats in Australia's premier T20 league.
| Criteria | Data |
| Matches | 9 |
| Wickets | 12 |
| Economy | 9.47 |
| Strike-Rate | 17 |
2. Kuldeep Sen
Another player who hasn't played a solitary match for Punjab Kings in this season is star seamer Kuldeep Sen. The former RR star was roped in by the Shreyas Iyer-led side for 80 lakhs at the IPL 2025 mega-auction.
Since IPL 2024, Sen hasn't played much cricket and neither has had any breakout tournament, where he was among wicket. However, PBKS have fewer like-to-like replacement pace options for Ferguson and Sen is one of them.
3.Azmatullah Omarzai
Omarzai is one more option that PBKS have as Ferguson's replacement. Although, Omarzai isn't a like-to-like replacements, but he can bowl pace and also contribute with the bat. Further, the Afghan star was presented with a few opportunities in the ongoing season. However, he failed to perform with the ball. Here is how Azmatullah Omarzai has performed so far for the Men in Red.
So far, Omarzai has played just one match in this season and he has scored just 16 runs in one innings. Further, he is wicketless in the tournament so far.
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 "Abhinav Tyagi")
