IPL 2009 - Flintoff out of IPL
England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff will play no further part in this years IPL tournament after a knee injury forced him to fly back to England. Flintoff, who has made three appearances for Chennai Super Kings with mixed fortunes will have surgery on his knee cartilage and is expected to be out of action for upto six weeks, meaning he will miss the Test series with the West Indies and in all likelihood the T20 World Cup which begins in early June, a tournament that you can bet on through BetUS Sportsbook.
There has been much consternation in England over the injury, given Flintoff missed a sizeable chunk of the winter tour to the West Indies, and it will leave him little time to get up to speed for what is expected to be a keenly fought Ashes contest with Australia.
His Chennai side missed out on a chance of victory this past weekend as their fixture with Kolkata Knight Riders was a victim of the weather as rain prevented a single ball from being bowled, leaving both sides in mid table.
Deccan Chargers remain at the top of the standings however and over the weekend they defeated the Mumbai Indians by 12 runs to lay down a marker to the rest of the sides that they could be the team to beat (as I predicted prior to the tournament). Deccan batted first and their total of 168/9 was almost all scored by top three Adam Gilchrist (35), Herschelle Gibbs (58) and Dwayne Smith (35) who all scored their runs at a fast pace. Lasith Malinga once again impressed with the ball, taking 3/19 off his allotted 4 overs. In reply, Mumbai had a useful second wicket partnership of 84 between Sachin Tendulkar and JP Duminy but once Pragyan Ojya dismissed both in quick succession Deccan had the upper hand and did not let their advantage slip as they restricted Mumbai to 156/7 to record their third straight win to remain top of the standings.
Elsewhere over the weekend, Kevin Pietersen’s miserable form continued as he recorded his second straight duck of the tournament and his Bangalore Royal Challengers side fell to their third straight defeat at the hands of Kings XI Punjab. Ravi Bopara was named man of the match thanks to his innings of 84, which along with Yuvraj Singh’s rapid fire 30 not out lifted them past Bangalore’s total of 168-9 (Jacques Kallis 62). The victory lifts Kings XI off the foot of the table at the expense of Bangalore.
There are two big clashes in store on Monday as the unbeaten Deccan Chargers face the Flintoff-less Chennai Super Kings and the Mumbai Indians go up against Kolkata Knight Riders in what should be very interesting matches in terms of IPL cricket betting, and could go some way to giving an indication of what teams could well be set for the knock out stages.
