Fast bowler Matheesha Pathirana of the Chennai Super Kings suffered a serious setback on Sunday before of their IPL 2024 encounter against Punjab Kings. Pathirana, who suffered hamstring injury, will have to head back home to to Sri Lanka for a proper treatment and recovery.

The right-arm bowler, who took 13 wickets at an economy of 7.68 in six IPL 2024 matches, has been a star performer for CSK during an otherwise uneven season. Whether he will return later in the season is yet unknown to the team.

This incident coincides with worries about Deepak Chahar’s health. Earlier this week, he bowled just two deliveries in the match against Punjab Kings at the Chepauk before he strained his hamstring. The CEO of the Chennai Super Kings, Kasi Viswanathan, believes it is extremely improbable that Chahar will play for the rest of the season. The status of Deepak’s injury is not favorable. He had said on Friday that he won’t say Chahar  is ruled out of the season, but it is doubtful.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s star cricketer Mustafizur Rahman left the Chennai Super Kings camp to play for his country in the upcoming series against Zimbabwe. With 14 wickets in just nine matches, the left-arm bowler was the leading wicket-taker for CSK this season.

Chennai has five wins and an equal number of losses in 10 matches in the on-going season, and they are now ranked fifth in the points table. In to compete again against Punjab Kings at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala, the five-time champions hope to strengthen their case for playoff qualifying. In the match at Chepauk, PBKS had beaten the team Ruturaj Gaikwad-led team by seven games.

Kolkata Knight Riders registered a 24-run win against Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Friday in the ongoing season of the Indian Premier League. KKR were restricted for 169 runs in 19.5 overs by the Mumbai Indians pace bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Nuwan Thushara’s three-fers. The Mumbai Indians in response were wrapped up for 145 runs as Mitchell Starc picked up a 4 wicket haul.

Venkatesh Iyer was the top scorer for Kolkata Knight Riders with a 70-run knock which took his side to the score as Manish Pandey scored 42 runs off his bat. Suryakumar Yadav was the lone ranger scoring 56 runs which gave Mumbai Indians some hope, but once he was dismissed the hosts batting order was folded by the KKR pace bowlers to pick up their 1st win at the Wankhede stadium in 12 years.

The Kolkata Knight Riders set a target of 170 runs for the Mumbai Indians. It was a disastrous start for KKR as they lost 4 important wickets in the powerplay itself and then another wicket fell in the very first ball after the first six overs. But the impact sub, Manish Pandey played the supporting role along with Venkatesh Iyer and brought the innings back to normal as the latter went on to finish with 70 runs in 52 balls to put the visitors in contention.

For Mumbai Indians, Nuwan Thushara gave outstanding bowling performance in the power play and picked up 3 important wickets. Hardik Pandya also supported in the middle overs by picking up 2 important wickets along with the lone wicket by Piyush Chawla. Jasprit Bumrah showed his class at the death overs by taking 3 important wickets in the latter stages of the innings as Mumbai Indians needed 170 to win the match. Mumbai Indians only needed 51 runs off the last 5 overs, but a superb effort from KKR’s bowlers put an end to their hopes.

India continues to be ranked at the top in men’s ODIs and T20Is following the yearly update that the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced on Friday. India is currently ranked second in the Test rankings, with Australia holding the top spot.

According to the ICC, all series finished since May 2021 are reflected in the annual update for the Test rankings, which excludes results from the 2020–21 season. With 124 rating points, Australia, the victors of the World Test Championship, are currently top of the table.

India, who lost the top spot to them, is only four points ahead of third-place England and fifteen points ahead of them. With 103 points, South Africa is the fourth team above the 100-point threshold. India’s decline was primarily caused by their 2020–21 2-1 series win in Australia being removed from the rankings.

The teams that placed third through ninth are still in the same order. There are currently just nine countries in the rankings because Afghanistan, Ireland, and Zimbabwe have not played enough Test matches. Zimbabwe has only played three Test matches in the last three years. To be listed on the rankings table, a team must participate in eight Test matches within a three-year period.

India leads the ODI and T20I standings in terms of white-ball matches; according to the annual update, matches played before May 2023 are worth 50% of the total points, and matches played after then are worth 100%.

Despite losing to Australia in the 2023 Men’s ODI World Cup final, India now leads the standings with 122 points, up from three points to six. The top ten remains unchanged, however Ireland has moved up to the eleventh spot, surpassing Zimbabwe.

In other changes, Scotland moved up to 12th place, surpassing Zimbabwe, and Pakistan fell two spots to seventh. Outside the top 20, Spain (moving up from 33rd to 30th), the Isle of Man (moving up from 44th to 41st), and Switzerland (moving up from 50th to 45th) have had the largest rating increases.