Is Manoj Tiwary expecting a place in CSK to replace Harbhajan Singh in IPL 2020?

As the much-awaited 2020 edition of the Indian Premier League is fast approaching, the three-time champion Chennai Super Kings is batting against tough times. A few days back the franchise had received a massive blow as its 13 members including two players namely pacer Deepak Chahar and right-handed batsman Ruturaj Gaikwad tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Adding to the misery, their vice-captain Suresh Raina decided to pull out his name from the cash-rich league and returned back to India citing personal reasons. Today, the Yellow Army again got shaken with a third massive blow as the veteran off-spinner Harbhajan Singh has decided to not be a part of the 13th edition of the cash-rich league due to personal reasons.

The off-spinner had not traveled with the team and was expected to join the squad in the first week of September. Harbhajan has been a part of CSK’s squad for the past two years and announced his decision of not being part of IPL via a tweet. The cricketer revealed that he would like to spend some private time with his family and is thankful to the CSK management for their extreme support and understanding in such difficult times.

Manoj Tiwary shares his bowling clip on Twitter

The news of Harbhajan pulling out from IPL tensed the CSK fans and they started listing the names of potential replacements for the off-spinner. A senior cricket Editor Venkata Krishna B expressed his opinion on the bowling line-up of CSK on Twitter saying that in the absence of Harbhajan, only Kedar Jadhav is the off-spinner left in Yellow Army’s squad.

Venkata tweeted, “With Harbhajan missing, @ChennaiIPL don’t have an off-spinner in their ranks. Kedar Jadhav will be the only one who can offer them this variety. Everyone else take the ball away from the right-hander.”

To this, the veteran Indian cricketer Manoj Tiwary replied by sharing a clip from a Ranji match between Bengal and Delhi where he can be seen bowling a perfect delivery to clean bold the on-strike batsman. The batsman further asked if this kind of bowling will work in the pitches of UAE. Tiwary replied, “Will dis work??”

Looking at the tweet by Bengal Stalwart, it is speculated that he is looking for a place in CSK’s squad for IPL 2020. Notably, Tiwary has been going unsold in the IPL auctions for two years now. The batsman last played in the 2018 edition of the T20 league, representing the Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) where he was in and out of the team. After that in 2019 and 2020 auctions, he set himself at a base price of INR 50 lakhs but to his dismay, he couldn’t find any buyer for himself.

The 34-year-old has till now featured in 98 games in the Indian Premier League scoring 1,695 runs with seven fifties. However, he doesn’t have any such bowling records, therefore the chances of CSK naming him as a replacement for Harbhajan Singh are almost nil.