Elbow injury curtails Faf du Plessis’ CPL season; set to undergo surgery

The persistent elbow injury that troubled Faf du Plessis for a while now has caused his departure from the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) as he decided to undergo surgery. Colin Munro will now replace the St Lucia Kings captain in the squad, whereas Zimbabwe allrounder Sikandar Raza has been appointed as the skipper.

"Happy with the result, but obviously sad [that] I'm leaving at a crucial stage in the tournament when you feel like the team can start doing some really good things in the tournament," du Plessis told Ian Bishop at the post-match presentation. 

"For me, the challenge with the elbow is I've played with it (tennis elbow) for almost two years; I've had eight cortisone injections into my elbow. So I'm at a stage where the cortisone is not good for my body anymore; so that's why the operation is always the last resort. I didn't want to do it, but [have] time off now. I've got to basically go from here to get off the plane into the hospital to get the surgery done."

Known for his brute power-hitting, du Plessis has carved a distinct niche in the first few overs. Even in the match against Trinbago Knight Riders, du Plessis managed to score 57 off 36 balls, but the pain has become unbearable for him to continue for one more game.

"During the last game, while I did feel a little bit of loss of power - all because of the pain, which sometimes pulls the power back. So you just have to play a game where you feel like maybe hitting at 80% power, and on fields like this, a little bit smaller, you can just time the ball.

"Raza is someone who has played a lot of T20 and T10 cricket. So very much an experienced brain there; so it's great to have those guys on the field and ask questions. Obviously, it's a change, and probably you could say a big change because it's someone stepping into the shoes for the first time with the St Lucia Kings. 

“But luckily, we've got someone like Sammy there who will make sure for the first one or two games, there will be some direction from his side. And then trust the guy on the field with the resources that he has at his disposal,” du Plessis added.