In addition to fast bowler Gerald Coetzee missing the whole white-ball leg of the trip owing to injury, South African middle-order batsman David Miller has been ruled out of the T20I series in Pakistan.
Regular captain Aiden Markram was rested for the T20I series, and Miller was selected the stand-in captain.
Nonetheless, scans performed on Wednesday verified that he had a grade-1 right hamstring injury while preparing for the tour.
He will now start a rehabilitation program that is phased in. Following specialist advice and subsequent scans that demonstrated the severity of the injury, he has begun a systematic rehabilitation program overseen by the Momentum Multiply Titans and Cricket South Africa High Performance medical teams, according to a CSA release cited by ESPNcricinfo.
South Africa will be led by all-rounder Donovan Ferreira for the three-match T20I series, which kicks off in Rawalpindi on October 28. South Africa lost by four wickets in a recent one-off Twenty20 International match against Namibia, which Ferreira captained. Due to a pectoral muscle injury, Gerald Coetzee will not play in the T20I or ODI series in Pakistan. He was injured while bowling just 1.3 overs in the Twenty20 International match against Namibia before leaving the field and never coming back.
Due to a hamstring issue he suffered in an early October domestic first-class match, left-arm seamer Kwena Maphaka will also not be playing in South Africa’s tour of Pakistan. South Africa has substituted fast bowler Ottneil Baartman for Coetzee in the ODI team and added hitters Matthew Breetzke and uncapped Tony de Zorzi to the T20I squad to make up for the absences.
Breetzke had been named the ODI team’s captain before. While the T20I team is expected to leave for Islamabad on October 23, the three-match ODI series will start right after the T20I leg on November 4 in Faisalabad.
India
