St Lucia Kings skipper and former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis is set to undergo elbow surgery after avoiding it for close to two years. He had been playing by using cortisone injections until now but he has been ruled out of Caribbean Premier League (CPL) 2023 now. He is currently playing for St Lucia Kings in CPL and the team is at the top of the points table as well. But with surgery on the horizon, he has been ruled out of the remainder of the season. The team has had two wins, a loss and two no-results from five games with Du Plessis scoring 112 runs in three innings. "Happy with the results 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 said at the post-match presentation of St. Lucia Kings' latest game.
"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. "Du Plessis's exit means that the St. Lucia Kings will have Sikandar Raza as the new captain for the remainder of the season. Losing a key player who is also the captain is never ideal for any side but Du Plessis opined that the squad had enough leaders in the side to manage things and threw his weight behind Raza to do an efficient job. "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." "Always for me, it's about pulling people in for the journey, and try and ask questions. And I feel that's the best way, according to me, to run things," du Plessis said. "You use the resources that you have. Roston Chase has been great. For me on the field, [it's] just speaking to him about local players and asking questions. Johnson Charles is a great cricket brain. He's not a guy who says a lot, but [is] a great thinker.
