Daily Times

South Africa’s fortunes at the 2019 ICC World Cup have gone from bad to worse as veteran fast bowler Dale Steyn has been ruled out of the tournament after he failed to recover from a shoulder injury. South Africa have called up Beuran Hendricks as a replacement and the ICC’s Event Technical Committee have approved the switch. Steyn has suffered a second shoulder injury which has not responded to treatment and has ruled him out of bowling for the foreseeable future. His replacement Hendricks is a left-arm fast bowler. Steyn, recently, first picked up the shoulder injury in his third match for the Royal Challengers Bangalore which resulted in his IPL being cut short much before he would have liked. Since then he has not played and was expected to make his return with Faf du Plessis’ side against India. The South African team management were hoping that Steyn would be fit in time for their match against India on June 5, but now will have to take the field with two of their premier bowlers ruled out. The Proteas are also missing the services of Lungi Ngidi who injured his hamstring in the game against Bangladesh.

South Africa lost both their opening games at the World Cup against hosts England and Bangladesh and will look to turn things around against India.

After the defeat to Bangladesh, Steyn was seen practicing his bowling, before he continued to the exercise with Hashim Amla for 30 minutes at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton. Steyn was present at the nets with the rest of the South African team too, but did not bowl during the session. Steyn’s stints with the ball during the practice sessions prompted coach Ottis Gibson to raise hopes of his return for the match against India.”Dale Steyn is getting closer every day, he was on the field today bowling again, he is 85 percent, so we have to decide if 85 percent is good enough to play against India,” Gibson had said.”We’ve got to play with the ones that are fit, first of all.” “Any team that sees a fit Dale Steyn on the scorecard still sees somebody that he can do some damage. His white-ball record overall is outstanding.”