IPL 2021: Scott Kuggeleijn Who Joined MI As Reserve Player, Joins RCB As Replacement For Kane Richardson

New Zealand pacer Scott Kuggeleijn, who had recently joined Mumbai Indians (MI) as a reserve player for the ongoing IPL 2021, has been named as the replacement player for Kane Richardson by the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), for the remainder of the tournament.

This comes after Kane Richardson, along with countrymate Adam Zampa, both Australians, decided to pull out of the ongoing IPL 14 citing personal reasons and concerns with the ongoing severe second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India and will fly home shortly.

Apart from Kane Richardson and Adam Zampa, another Australian Andre Tye, who was part of Rajasthan Royals (RR), and RR’s England recruit Liam Livingstone, has also pulled out of the IPL 2021 tournament and Livingstone has already flown back to the UK.

Ravichandran Ashwin became the first Indian player to pull out of the IPL 2021, saying that he is taking a break from the tournament to be with his family and support them in the fight against COVID-19. He has kept the door open for a return if things get better.

Scott Kuggeleijn Joins RCB Squad As Kane Richardson’s Replacement:

Kuggeleijn has the experience of playing in the Indian Premier League, In the year 2019, the New Zealand all-rounder was part of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) side and managed to play 2 games and picked up two wickets as well. The news of Kuggeleijn joining the RCB camp as a replacement for Kane Richardson was confirmed by ESPNCricinfo.com.

Scott Kuggeleijn has played 2 ODIs and 16 T20Is for New Zealand having made his debut for the Blackcaps in 2017. He has 5 ODI wickets and 13 T20I wickets to his name. Apart from this, Kuggeleijn has played 83 FC matches, 83 List-A matches, and 120 T20 matches, picking 266, 126, and 118 wickets respectively.

Royal Challengers Bangalore will welcome Kuggeleijn who is known to be a capable death-overs bowler with variations in his quiver. RCB lost their first match in the IPL 2021, when they were humbled by 69 runs by the Chennai Super Kings on April 25 in Mumbai. Before that, RCB had won their first 4 consecutive matches, the first time they achieved the feat in IPL history.

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