Punjab Kings’ Glenn Maxwell.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Punjab Kings’ Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell was on Thursday (May 1, 2025) ruled out of the Indian Premier League’s remaining matches after fracturing his finger, the franchise announced.
Maxwell suffered the injury before PBKS’ rained out game against Kolkata Knight Riders in which he was dismissed for 7, continuing an underwhelming season.
“Glenn Maxwell has been ruled out of the remainder of the season due to a finger injury. We wish him a speedy recovery,” Kings posted on their social media handle.
Maxwell was replaced by Suryansh Shedge in Wednesday night’s clash against Chennai Super Kings that PBKS won by four wickets.
The veteran Australian all-rounder had a forgettable run in this year’s IPL, managing a mere 48 runs in seven matches averaging a lowly eight while taking four wickets.
“Unfortunately, Maxi’s broken his finger. He broke it just before the last game at training. He didn’t think it was too bad, but it ended up getting pretty bad. He had scans and yeah, the results weren’t great. So unfortunately for Maxi, I think it’s likely he’s out for the tournament,” Maxwell’s compatriot and PBKS teammate Marcus Stoinis had told ‘Jiostar’ ahead of the CSK game.
Punjab head coach Ricky Ponting said the side is currently trying to figure a suitable replacement for Maxwell which may not be easy to find.
“We will be signing some replacements at some stage,” Ponting said in the post-match press conference when asked about the injury setback.
“We’ve got until our 12th game, so we have a couple of games to go yet. With the squad we’ve got, we’re trying to find players in our squad anyway. So we’ve got Azmatullah (Omarzai), Aaron Hardie who hasn’t played yet, Xavier Bartlett who didn’t play today.
“It’s conditions based. But when we get to Dharamsala he will come back into the reckoning up there, where the ball might swing and bounce a little bit more,” he explained.
Ponting said the side is having a good look at the Indian talent that it has as international options are limited due to other ongoing leagues.
“…there’s not a lot of high quality replacements out there to be honest. So we’ve just been patient,” he said.
“We’re having a look around at Indian talent as well and we’re looking at what roles we might be able to fill with some younger Indian players. We’ll actually take a couple of guys to Dharamsala with us, a couple of guys trained with us yesterday and they will come with us to Dharamsala.
“…we’ll have a closer look at them and they might find themselves with a Punjab contract going forward (smiles). It has to be this week, has to be before the 12th game so stay tuned,” he added.
Published – May 01, 2025 03:12 pm IST
Content Source: www.thehindu.com