BCCI Grants Fitness Clearance to Avesh Khan, Likely to Play Against SRH: Reports

After a demoralizing loss to the Delhi Capitals in their IPL 2025 opener, the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) have received some heartening news. Their injured pacer, Avesh Khan, has been declared fit by the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) Centre of Excellence, as per ESPNcricinfo.

Avesh experienced pain in his right knee after playing against Kerala in the second leg of the Ranji Trophy 2024-25 season. He has been at the BCCI Center of Excellence (CoE) since early January, and after nearly two months of rehabilitation, he was cleared on Monday (March 24).

However, he is likely to be available for selection for the SRH vs. LSG game at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. There were earlier reports that Avesh could miss three games, but that now seems unlikely.

Justin Langer Provides Injury Updates on Mayank and Akash Deep

 LSG head coach Justin Langer also provided updates on Mayank and Deep before the fixture against DC. He further revealed that Mayank hit his toe on a bed and got an infection which has increased his recovery time by another week or two. He is confident of using him in the team in the later part of the season.

"Mayank, who everyone was very excited about last year, he was going quite well (coming back from a back injury), and he kicked his toe on the bed. He got an infection in his toe. It's put his rehab back about a week or two weeks. But he's up and running. We regularly see videos of him bowling. I saw a video of his yesterday. So, hopefully, by the back end of the tournament, Mayank will be up and ready to go for us." Langer told the reporters.

 "Akash Deep is up and running, and bowling at about 90% now. I believe he's done his yo-yo test. So, he's really ticking off all the boxes," Langer added.

On March 24, Mohsin Khan's stand-in, Shardul Thakur, made a notable debut for LSG. With the new ball, he secured the wickets of opener Jake Fraser-McGurk and wicketkeeper-batter Abhishek Porel. However, Pant didn't recall him into the attack during the middle and slog overs.

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