(Cricket News) The English left-arm seamer David Willey will miss the start of the IPL 2024 due to personal reasons. He is a part of the Lucknow Super Giants in this edition of the IPL, after spending a couple of years at the Royal Challengers Bengaluru.

Willey was purchased by LSG for a base price of INR 2 Cr, but hasn’t joined the side yet after spending last couple of months away from home, representing Abu Dhabi Knight Riders and Multan Sultans in the ILT20 and the PSL respectively. LSG’s new head coach Justin Langer revealed the news on Wednesday about Willey’s absence.

The Englishmen, however has not been replaced in the squad and is expected to join the side at some point of time during the season. He has been away from home for most of the English winter, having played at the World Cup in India, and has returned to the UK after playing in the PSL final on Monday.

Mark Wood earlier was pulled out by the ECB from the entire campaign, in order to manage his workload ahead of the T20 World Cup, which now makes Willey the second Englishmen to be away from LSG’s campaign. Shamar Joseph was announced as the replacement for Wood, while Willey’s availability is still not very clear.

“With Mark Wood pulling out of the tournament and also David Willey won’t be coming now either, that means we lack some experience,” Langer said, when asked about LSG’s pace attack. “But what I’ve also seen in the last couple of days is that we have enormous talent. Some of our guys have had some injuries but they all look very fit at the moment.

“They look fit and healthy and they’re very hungry, so we’ll just have to manage them well so that we can get them through and work through the whole tournament, not just the start of the tournament. We’ve got one overseas player up our sleeve if required, where we might be able to add some experience.”

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