Defending champions Chennai Super Kings has suffered a huge blow as their opener Devon Conway has been ruled out until May with a thumb injury. Conway suffered the injury in the T20I series against Australia and was also ruled out of the first Test.

The left-handed batter will now require a surgery, which will keep him out of action until May. Conway scored 672 runs in IPL 2023 and played an instrumental role in taking CSK to glory along with his opening partner, Ruturaj Gaikwad, who amassed 590 runs.

Conway’s recovery is expected to take at least eight weeks and CSK will now have to find an ideal replacement.

Henry Nicholls, who was called in as cover for Conway for the first Test against Australia, will now remain with the New Zealand squad for the second game.

Moreover, Ben Sears has replaced injured Will O’Rourke, who suffered a left hamstring strain.

“Ben’s a young bowler with a quality skill set,” head coach Gary Stead said. “He bowls with genuine pace and gets good bounce which is always a great asset in red ball cricket. We’ve been really impressed by his performances for the BLACKCAPS in white ball cricket this summer and believe he can make the step up to the Test arena if called upon.”

Meanwhile, CSK could ask Ajinkya Rahane to open the innings but the batter is currently out of form.

CSK will begin their title defence against RCB on March 22 at Chennai.

CSK IPL 2024 SQUAD

MS Dhoni (c), Moeen Ali, Deepak Chahar, Devon Conway, Tushar Deshpande, Shivam Dube, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajay Mandal, Mukesh Choudhary, Matheesha Pathirana, Ajinkya Rahane, Shaik Rasheed, Mitchell Santner, Simarjeet Singh, Nishant Sindhu, Prashant Solanki, Maheesh Theekshana, Rachin Ravindra, Shardul Thakur, Daryl Mitchell, Sameer Rizvi, Mustafizur Rahman, Avanish Rao Aravelly.