In a major blow to India's World Cup ambitions, opener Shikhar Dhawan has been ruled out of the rest of the tournament due to a fractured thumb. Dhawan has been ruled out till mid-July. "BCCI has written to the ICC for replacing Dhawan with Rishabh Pant," said BCCI team manager Sunil Subramanian.
Dhawan sustained the fracture after being hit on his left thumb by a rising delivery from Pat Cummins during India's match against Australia on June 9. "Following several specialist opinions, he will remain in a cast until the middle of July and therefore will not be available for the remainder of CWC19," BCCI said on its Twitter handle.
Dhawan, 33, played through pain after being hit and made a match-winning knock of 117 off 109 balls catapulting India to a 36-run victory over the five-time World Cup champions. Dhawan was soon ruled out of the next three matches.
India had flown in wicketkeeper batsman Rishabh Pant as cover for the injured Dhawan in the World Cup squad. Pant, whose omission from the original squad became a topic of heated debates given his stupendous form in the past one year, joined the team last Wednesday.
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Dhawan was not included in the playing XI in the match against Pakistan. India's next match is against Afghanistan on Saturday, June 22. Dhawan has an impressive record at ICC tournaments, and his omission would be a big loss for India.
Pant comes in with an accumulated ODI experience of just five matches but is considered a trump card owing to his fearless approach. He was part of the official standbys list along with Ambati Rayudu.
Pant's addition to the side was backed by the legendary Sunil Gavaskar. The former captain felt that the Delhi-lad deserved to replace Dhawan given the youngster's "cracking hot form". Pant had scored impressive hundreds during the Test tours of England and Australia. He also enjoyed a good run in the IPL last month, scoring 488 runs with a strike rate of over 160.
What perhaps prompted the team management to finally make an annoucement on Dhawan's injury was the fact that even Bhuvneshwar Kumar is injured.
India would have had only 13 players to select from in the Afghanistan game on June 22 if Pant was not brought in as a replacement. Bhuvneshwar is out of the next three matches with a hamstring niggle.
(With inputs from Neeru Bhatia, PTI)
