Eoin Morgan, along with Shubman Gill and Prasidh Krishna, joined the Kolkata Knight Riders camp in Mumbai on Monday following the completion of the India-England ODI series in Pune.
The franchise posted pictures of the three on their official Twitter handle with the caption, “A special delivery from Pune arrived this afternoon.”
As per the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s guidelines, players who will be making a bubble-to-bubble transition wouldn’t be required to undergo the seven-day quarantine process. The Knights’ trio, therefore, will not have any quarantine obligations and can join the practice sessions straightaway.
It will be interesting to see when captain Morgan joins full-fledged training since he had split the webbing between the thumb and index finger of his right hand during the first one-dayer against India. Morgan, England’s white-ball captain, did not play in the remaining ODIs. He had received four stitches for the same.
Sources in the Knights camp, however, claimed that the team is optimistic about having the services of the 34-year-old from the very first match itself, which is on April 11 against the Sunrisers Hyderabad in Chennai.
Among those who have already started training are vice-captain Dinesh Karthik and all-rounder Ben Cutting.
Australian Cutting is a recent addition to the Knights’ roster, having been recruited at the auction last month for his base price of Rs 75 lakh.
Cutting is not new to the IPL though, having represented Mumbai Indians, Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad previously. The 34-year-old, who bowls right-arm medium pace and is a decent big-hitter lower down the order, is being seen as a back-up for Caribbean star Andre Russell, who is injury-prone.
Cutting played for the Quetta Gladiators in the Pakistan Super League and said that he had been practising in Dubai before joining the Knights camp in Mumbai.
“It’s warm here, but to be fair, the Mumbai weather is quite similar to Brisbane from where I come… In the middle of the summer, it’s 35 degrees, hot and humid,” Cutting was heard saying in a short video posted on the Knights’ Twitter handle.
Some of the other franchises too had the India and England players joining in.
Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav and brothers Krunal and Hardik Pandya joined the Mumbai Indians squad on Monday.
The Delhi Capitals squad welcomed Rishabh Pant and Axar Patel at their team hotel. Also joining them was Ravichandran Ashwin and head coach Ricky Ponting.
