South Africa face an anxious wait over the fitness of experienced seamer Dale Steyn after an injured shoulder ruled him out of the Indian Premier League season, putting his World Cup prospects in doubt.
Steyn joined Bangalore last week as replacement for Nathan Coulter-Nile in the Twenty 20 tournament. He is in South Africa’s squad for the World Cup starting next month. He missed Bangalore’s match against Kings XI Punjab on Wednesday with skipper Virat Kohli saying the speedster had a “shoulder niggle”.
The pacers injury will also put pressure on South Africa, who will be sweating on his fitness ahead of the tournament opener against England which will begin on May 30. He had to returned to the IPL after a gap of two years and straight away contributed to the team’s winning cause by picking up four wickets in two games.
An injury that he sustained in the India in 2015 curtailed his participation and he was ruled out for a couple of months. He returned for the series against England and put his performances in the Boxing Day Test in Durban When he picked up 4/70 in the second innings, he was suffering from A shoulder injury which prolonged his time on the sidelines. He was sidelined for almost 14 months due to a surgery on his shoulder. It seemed that the record would be out of Steyn’s reach. In 2018, he had returned for the India series in Cape Town, he got two wickets but in the second innings, an injured heel resulted in him missing the series and also the four Tests against Australia.
