Why are Jonny Bairstow and Shikhar Dhawan not playing IPL 2024 Match 33 between PBKS vs MI?

Shikhar Dhawan and Jonny Bairstow. (Photo Source: IPL)

Punjab Kings (PBKS) are about to take on Mumbai Indians (MI) in Match 33 of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium, Mullanpur, Chandigarh. PBKS captain Sam Curran won the toss and invited Mumbai to bat first. Coming into the game on the back of consecutive losses, Punjab made a couple of changes to their playing XI.

They continued to miss the services of their skipper Shikhar Dhawan who missed the previous game as well due to a shoulder injury. The southpaw is the leading run-scorer of his team so far with 152 runs to his name from five innings at an average of 30.40 and a strike rate of 125.61. In his place, Curran will continue to take up the leadership duties.

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Apart from him, Punjab made one more change as they benched their opener Jonny Bairstow. The 34-year-old has had a disastrous season so far having scored just 96 runs from six innings at an average of 16 and a strike rate of 131.50.

Bairstow has been replaced by Rilee Rossouw who will be playing the first game of the season. The southpaw has played 14 matches in his IPL career so far and scored 262 runs at an average of 21.83 with one fifty to his name. Along with Bairstow, PBKS management also benched Atharva Taide who opened the innings in the absence of Dhawan in the last match and scored 15 (12).

On the other hand, despite losing their last fixture against Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Mumbai didn’t make any changes to their playing XI.

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Punjab Kings (Playing XI): Rilee Rossouw, Prabhsimran Singh, Sam Curran(c), Jitesh Sharma(w), Liam Livingstone, Shashank Singh, Ashutosh Sharma, Harpreet Brar, Harshal Patel, Kagiso Rabada, Arshdeep Singh