The rise of Thangarasu Natarajan at the highest level has been quite phenomenal. However, it has been a lingering knee injury that hasn’t allowed the left-arm pacer to settle into the Sunrisers Hyderabad outfit especially in this edition. Despite his troublesome knee, he hasn’t left the bio-bubble to have a scan yet.
If he leaves the bubble then he will need to quarantine for at least seven days to re-enter the team’s bubble. As Natarajan missed his second game of the tournament against the Punjab Kings, SRH skipper David Warner said that Natarajan has got a sore knee and the physios and the trainers are trying their level best to analyse by looking at it. However, he also added that Natarajan has to go for scans at some point or the other.
"He obviously has got a sore knee," Warner said at the post-match press conference. "Given the circumstances in these bubbles, if he goes and gets a scan, he obviously has to sit out for seven days; he has to go back into quarantine. We are just monitoring at the moment. The physios are doing their best to analyse from a face point of view. But he obviously has to go and have a scan at some point."
Khaleel Ahmed was brought into the XI to replace Khaleel Ahmed and the left-arm pacer had an impressive outing. He bagged 1/24 in his four overs spell against the Mumbai Indians while picking 3 wickets for just 21 runs against the Punjab Kings.
The knee trouble had kept him out of the first three T20I’s against England as well. He played in the final encounter bagging a wicket for 39 runs and also played the final ODI in Pune bagging a wicket and conceding 79 runs in his 10 overs spell.
Meanwhile, Sunrisers Hyderabad will be missing Natarjan’s services who has emerged as a great bowler in the death. He made his national debut across formats in Australia not long ago and will look to return to the team at the earliest. SRH managed to win their first match of IPL 2021 when they defeated Punjab Kings quite convincingly by 9 wickets in the 14th match of the competition.