IPL 2026 – Saurabh Dubey to replace Akash Deep at Kolkata Knight Riders

Uncapped in the IPL, Dubey has played just 11 games at the senior level and has not played competitive cricket in nearly two-and-a-half years, last representing Vidarbha in a T20 in October 2023. But he impressed in the Vidarbha Pro T20 League last year for Orange Tigers. In 2022, he was bought by Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) but his season was cut short by injury. He has also been a net bowler with Mumbai Indians. Dubey, 28, first made waves in 2019 when he was the leading wicket-taker for India in the ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup.

KKR were conducting trials in the backdrop of their IPL training camp in Kolkata over the week, looking for a replacement for Akash Deep, and potentially for Harshit Rana. Some other bowlers who participated in the trials were Navdeep Saini, KM Asif, Simarjeet Singh, Akash Madhwal and Sandeep Warrier.

“Head coach Abhishek Nayar has done a great job lining up the potential options and bringing them over so that the coaches can see, be part of our training and practice games,” Mysore said. “Definitely the one who has caught everyone’s eyes is Saurabh Dubey, Vidarbha left-arm seamer, tall.

“The coaches were excited, called up and said, ‘this is who we would like to take as Akash Deep’s replacement.'”

On Matheesha Pathirana, who will miss the early part of the season too, Mysore had his “fingers crossed” on the seamer’s participation. KKR head coach Abhishek Nayar had recently said Pathirana was going to be available from around mid-April after he picked up an injury in the recent T20 World Cup.

“We’ve been constantly in touch with him and in touch with the board [SLC],” Mysore said. “We want to do the right thing by the player. There is no intention on anyone’s part to rush this. All of these things take their time. Hopefully, fingers crossed, it won’t be too long.”

Akash Deep was ruled out on Saturday after he failed to recover in time from his lower-back injury. Rehabilitating at the Centre of Excellence, he needs around three months to fully recover. Rana is suffering from a knee injury.

Dubey joins a seam-bowling unit at KKR that includes Pathirana, Blessing Muzarabani, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi and Umran Malik. Allrounder Cameron Green is also a seam-bowling option in the squad.

Source link