Star England wicketkeeper batter Jonny Bairstow‘s replacement has been announced by the Punjab Kings. Australian cricketer Matthew Short has been named as his replacement. Short has impressed everyone in his brief T20 career. Bairstow is taking time to recover from his injury and is looking to focus on the upcoming Ashes series.
Short’s T20 Record
This will be Short’s first time participating in the IPL. In the most recent Big Bash League, he was named Player of the Tournament after scoring 458 runs for Adelaide Strikers as an opener, which was the second-highest total in the competition, with an average of 35.23 and a strike rate of 144.47.
His greatest effort was a perfect 100 in a 230-run chase to defeat the Hobart Hurricanes. Short is a skilled fielder who is also a useful offspinner. During the BBL’s powerplay, he bowled with confidence and claimed 11 wickets overall at an economy of 7.13. Short, an all-round cricketer who represents his native state of Victoria in Australia’s domestic season, scored three centuries in first-class and List-A cricket during the second half of the year.
On September 2, just days before the third and final Test of England’s home series against South Africa, Bairstow fractured his left leg and dislocated his ankle. He slipped while playing golf with pals, breaking his fibula many times, necessitating the insertion of a plate during surgery a few days later, and also sustaining ligament damage.
Since then, he has been absent from every England cricket match, including the T20 World Cup, when he was scheduled to open with his skipper Jos Buttler. He also skipped trips to Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Africa, New Zealand, and the ILT20, where he was scheduled to play for the Abu Dhabi Knight Riders.
Bairstow is regarded as one of the all-format batters, thus his absence will undoubtedly affect Kings’ approach. In the most recent IPL, Bairstow amassed two half-centuries and 253 runs in 11 innings, scoring at a strike rate of 144.57 and an average of 23.00.
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