Punjab Kings' Head of Development of Cricket Sanjay Bangar has strongly hinted at Shikhar Dhawan's possibility of missing at least the next 2 matches of IPL 2024. The former Indian all-rounder also clarified about why Sam Curran captained the Punjab Kings instead of Jitesh Sharma in the clash against the Rajasthan Royals on Saturday.
Dhawan missed the match on Saturday in Mullanpur due to a shoulder niggle, forcing Sam Curran to step in as captain. However, the Punjab-based franchise succumbed to their 2nd consecutive loss as the Royals prevailed by 3 wickets despite fighting hard to defend a modest 147.
Speaking at a presser after the defeat, the 51-year-old claimed, as quoted by Cricbuzz:
"Unfortunately we missed out on having Shikhar [tonight] because he has a shoulder injury. So, he's likely to be out for a couple of days [games] I would say. We'll have to wait and see how he responds to the treatment, but at the moment it seems that he could be out of action for at least seven to 10 days."
"Jitesh isn't the designated vice captain" - Sanjay Bangar
Bangar went on to clarify that they opted to have Sam Curran as the stand-in captain instead of Jitesh Sharma to keep the continuity, given he captained them last year too.
"Jitesh isn't the designated vice captain and I think maybe the impression could have been so because he attended the captain's seminar at the start of the IPL. The thought was always to have Curran [stand-in] because he had led the team in the previous year as well. He was late to arrive from the UK and because he wanted to have few sessions, that's the reason we couldn't send him to Chennai for [briefing] and hence Jitesh was sent since the directive from the IPL [committee] was that a player has to attend."
