Matheesha Pathirana is not part of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) playing XI in their IPL 2025 match against Mumbai Indians (MI).
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) won the toss in their 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) opener against El Clasico rivals Mumbai Indians and opted to field first at Chepauk on Sunday. At the toss, Chennai Super Kings skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad confirmed that Noor Ahmad, Nathan Ellis, Rachin Ravindra and Sam Curran are the overseas players. This meant that there was no place for Sri Lanka’s Matheesha Pathirana in the Chennai Super Kings playing XI.
Ruturaj Gaikwad had said on Saturday that Chennai Super Kings have several pacers as back-up options because of which Pathirana eventually missed out. He had said that a final call would be taken depending on how Pathirana felt before the match.
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“We had a good look at him in the practice game. He’s definitely looking in good shape, but what this year we’ve done in the auctions as well is we’ve got very good fast bowlers as backups. Even the Indian pacers. We have Mukesh, Khaleel, Anshul Kamboj has done really well in the domestic circuit. But it’s always good to have Pathirana in the team. Depending on how’s he feeling before the match, whether he’s 100%, we can talk a call,” Ruturaj said at the pre-match press conference.
Matheesha Pathirana has only played for Chennai Super Kings in the IPL. He made his IPL debut during an IPL 2022 league stage game against Gujarat Titans (GT) in Mumbai, and finished with figures of 2/24 albeit coming in a losing cause. The 22-year-old enjoyed an excellent IPL 2023, taking 19 wickets in 12 matches as Chennai Super Kings won their fifth title. In IPL 2024, Pathirana played just six matches during which he took 13 wickets.
However, the youngster was ruled out of IPL 2024 during a hamstring injury, which he had sustained during a series against Bangladesh in March last year.
Overall, Pathirana has played 20 IPL matches across three seasons and taken 34 wickets at an economy of 7.68. His best figures of 4/28 came against Mumbai Indians in IPL 2024.
Coming back to the match, Mumbai Indians were 35/2 in 4.2 overs at the time of writing this report. Pacer Khaleel Ahmed struck twice to remove openers Rohit Sharma and Ryan Rickelton.
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