The in-form Kolkata Knight Riders’ (KKR) middle-order batsman Nitish Rana could miss Thursday’s IPL game against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) due to a lower back spasm.
One of their most consistent middle-order batsmen, Rana walked off the field while on 17 during their six-wicket win at Royal Challengers Bangalore on April 29.
“He’s got lower back spasms… The medical team will take a call tomorrow (Thursday) morning,” a team official said on the eve of the game.
Rana did not attend KKR’s training session. He has so far scored 188 runs from eight matches at 31.33 but maintained a strike rate of above 135.
Meanwhile, an MS Dhoni-less team CSK had an optional training session at the Eden under the watchful eyes of coach Stephen Fleming.
Filling up the gallery & pages with a lot of memories! 😍
It was a special day for few lucky #KnightRiders post training! 💜For more 📸s visit: https://t.co/2S4e4f2Snj#KKRHaiTaiyaar #KKRvCSK pic.twitter.com/BAATqgwN6f
— KolkataKnightRiders (@KKRiders) May 2, 2018
Dhoni and Harbhajan Singh skipped the optional training, while Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Lungi Ngidi and Faf du Plessis joined the team midway into the practice session.
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CSK lead the table with 12 points from eight matches, while KKR lies on fourth with eight points from eight points. KKR don’t have a good track record against CSK, losing 12 times out of 19 matches.
Squads:
KKR: Dinesh Karthik (C/WK), Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa, Kuldeep Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Nitish Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Shivam Mavi, Mitchell Johnson, Shubman Gill, R Vinay Kumar, Rinku Singh, Cameron Delport, Javon Searless, Apoorv Wankhade, Ishank Jaggi and Tom Curran.
CSK: MS Dhoni (C/WK), Ravindra Jadeja, Suresh Raina, Kedar Jadhav, Dwayne Bravo, Karn Sharma, Shane Watson, Shardul Thakur, Ambati Rayudu, Murali Vijay, Harbhajan Singh, Faf Du Plessis, Mark Wood, Sam Billings, Imran Tahir, Deepak Chahar, Lungisani Ngidi, K.M. Asif, N. Jagadeesan, Kanishk Seth, Monu Singh, Dhruv Shorey, Kshitiz Sharma, Chaitanya Bishnoi.
