Image Credit- BCCI
Jason Behrendorff’s
chances of making Australia’s T20 World Cup team were severely damaged when he
was forced to miss the Indian Premier League due to a broken leg sustained in
an unusual training accident last week.
Before leaving for India to play in the IPL with the Mumbai Indians,
Behrendorff was batting in the nets at the WACA field last Thursday. A ball
missed his pad and smacked him flush just above the left ankle, breaking his
left fibula.
He doesn’t need
surgery, but it will take about eight weeks to recover, so he can’t play in the
IPL. Luke Wood, an England left-arm fast, has taken his place in Mumbai’s
lineup; however, Behrendorff’s injury is a serious blow to Mumbai’s bowling
depth, since he claimed 14 wickets in 12 matches the previous season.
For Behrendorff, who
has had an outstanding year and is currently Australia’s T20I player of the
year, it is a startling bit of bad luck. In five Australia matches during the
2023 tours of South Africa and India, he claimed eight wickets with a strike rate
of 16.50 and an economy rate of just 6.60. In the five-match T20I series after
the ODI World Cup, Australia’s lone victory came thanks to a brilliant stint
from him in Guwahati. In a match where both sides amassed 447 runs in 40 overs
and no other bowler gave up fewer than eight runs per over, he took 1 for 12
from four overs with 17 dots.
After playing the
home series against West Indies, Behrendorff was left out of Australia’s team
for the recent Twenty20 International series in New Zealand due to the comeback
of Mitchell Starc. Although he had very little chance of reaching the final World
Cup 15 when everyone was fit, he was considered one of the best backups in case
something happened to Starc during the Indian Premier League.
Behrendorff’s current goal is to heal in time to be available for the May
31–May 31 T20 Blast in England. He participated in the Blast for Middlesex in
2022 and Sussex in 2019.