New Delhi: While the eight franchises have plenty to ponder over with key players missing due to injuries, the skippers of all the teams finally came together for a selfie ahead of the opener of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2017.
The IPL posted the photograph from its official account, where Suresh Raina took the selfie while Gautam Gambhir, Zaheer Khan, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Steve Smith, Glenn Maxwell and David Warner stood in the background.
All smiles! The eight captains get into the #IPL selfie mode pic.twitter.com/MmrbXZFrUS
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 4, 2017
While Rohit is making a comeback after missing out on international cricket for five months due to an injury, Kohli is likely to sit out of Royal Challengers Bangalore's opening game against Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 5 as he is yet to fully recover from the shoulder injury he sustained during the Test series against Australia recently.
Among all the skippers, apart from Kohli, only the Aussie troika has been playing international cricket frequently.
While Gautam Gambhir has been away from limited-overs cricket for quite some time, Zaheer announced his retirement few years ago. Raina, a key member of the Indian team in the past, has been on a break from cricket over the last few months. It would be interesting to see whether Rohit can make an impact after being away from cricket for so long.
Smith, Maxwell and Warner are all experts of this format and their teams would rely heavily upon them for a good show in the new season.
For Gujarat Lions captain Suresh Raina, this season will be a make or break one after being dropped from the one-day squad and central contracts.
After a bitterly-fought Test series, it would also be interesting to see whether the on-field banters between Indian and Australian cricketers will have any impact in the cash-rich tournament.
