Ajinkya Rahane. (Image Credit - X)
The management of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) has been handed another major blow ahead of the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League on Saturday. As per a report, Indian pacer Akash Deep has been ruled out of the entire tournament due to an injury. While the nature of the injury is yet to be revealed, certainly, Akash Deep will not take part in the marquee league this season.
The report further stated that Akash Deep failed to report to the KKR camp, which took place on March 18. Bought for Rs 18 crore, the pacer from Bihar is in the process of recovery, but the possibility of his returning to the KKR camp remains unclear.
“Unfortunately, he is out of the IPL, ruled out for the season,” the website quoted a KKR official as saying.
Bought at the base price of Rs 1 crore, Deep joins young pacer Harshit Rana to get ruled out of KKR’s season before it has even started.
Rana sustained a knee injury during the warm-up games for the T20 World Cup 2026 and required surgical intervention. He was last spotted in a group at the BCCI’s yearly awards.
KKR’s coach Abhishek Nayar practically confirmed in the team’s latest press conference that Rana would be absent for the season. Furthermore, Sri Lankan bowler Matheesha Pathirana, who contracted for Rs. 18 crore in the bidding, will also skip part of the campaign and is not expected to join the team until the very end.
“In any tournament with any team, once you lose some of the key bowling options, these are things you plan for, but also things you have to accept. The good thing about Indian cricket, especially at the moment, is that there is a lot of depth,” Bravo said.
“So there are some guys, as the coach mentioned, that we are definitely looking at to fill the spot – the likes of Umran Malik. These guys are also players who have represented the national team at some point in time and have also played in the IPL before. They are young, exciting talents. So, for me personally, I’m happy to work with this group of fast bowlers,” Bravo added.
KKR are set to kick their IPL 2026 campaign off against the Mumbai Indians on March 29 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
KKR Squad: Ajinkya Rahane, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Anukul Roy, Harshit Rana, Manish Pandey, Ramandeep Singh, Rinku Singh, Rovman Powell, Sunil Narine, Umran Malik, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, Cameron Green, Finn Allen, Matheesha Pathirana, Tejasvi Singh, Kartik Tyagi, Prashant Solanki, Rahul Tripathi, Tim Seifert, Mustafizur Rahman, Sarthak Ranjan, Daksh Kamra, Rachin Ravindra, Akash Deep.
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