‘Isse pooch lo pehle ki khelega yaa nahi’ – Fans react as Kolkata sign Jason Roy in place of Shakib Al Hasan in Indian T20 League 2023
Kolkata have won two titles in Indian T20 League.
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Apr 5, 2023 3:38 pm
Shakib Al Hasan and Jason Roy (Source: Twitter)
The Kolkata camp has huge news coming in. English batter Jason Roy has been announced as the replacement for Bangladesh allrounder Shakib Al Hasan. He has been signed for INR 2.8 crores. The England opener is no stranger in the Indian T20 League. He has represented Delhi, Hyderabad and Gujarat in the past. The right-handed batter has been in good form in T20Is for England and is a renowned ball striker across T20 leagues around the world.
The Opener has not set the Indian T20 League on fire. He has scored 329 runs at an average of 29.90 and a strike rate of 129.01. The top-order batter has been circumspect against spin whenever he has played in the Indian T20 League. He has scored two half-centuries in the tournament with the highest score of 91. It will be interesting to see where he bats for Kolkata. The franchise already have a lot of opening options at their disposal. Like Rahamanullah Gurbaz, Venkatesh Iyer, Litton Das and others.
Shreyas Iyer will also not be a part of Test Championship final for India in England
Shakib Al Hasan said that he was not going to play in the Indian T20 League due to his workload. The ace all-rounder wanted to play the home series against Ireland. Shakib has played for the Kolkata franchise in the past. He was part of the title-winning sides in 2012 and 2014. Shakib also played for Kolkata in 2021 where they lost to Chennai. Kolkata will also miss the services of Iyer as he is ruled out of the Indian T20 League.
Iyer will not take part in the tournament due to a disc-related injury to his back as reported by Cricbuzz. The India player will fly down to London for surgery. This means that Iyer will miss the league and also will not be in contention for the Test Championship final. Iyer missed the final Test against Australia at Ahmedabad after he injured his back. He had also missed the limited-overs leg against New Zealand because of the same injury.
Kolkata did not have the best of starts to the tournament. The Nitish Rana-led side lost to Punjab by 7 runs. Kolkata finished seventh in 2022. The franchise ended up with 12 points when the season ended. It looks like it is going to be a tough road for Kolkata ahead of the 2023 season.
Let us take a look at the reactions on Twitter:
As usual. They have an opener, they have foreign quite destructive and effevtive opener but still they want to replace a allrounder with another fluck opener. Wahhhh… Surely might be he was abvailable in cheap price as Venky Mysors policy is to buy players as vegetables.
