Exciting opportunity: LSG pacer O'Rourke on playing in IPL

On May 15, Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) pacer Mayank Yadav was ruled out of the remainder of the Indian Premier League (IPL) due to an injury. New Zealand pacer Will O'Rourke replaced him, the IPL announced on its official website.

"Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) have roped in New Zealand pacer, William O'Rourke, as an injury replacement for Mayank Yadav. Yadav sustained a back injury and is ruled out for the remainder of the season," the statement said.

O'Rourke will be his replacement at a reserve price of Rs three crore. Rourke has represented NZ in five T20Is, taking five wickets at an average of 28.60. In 38 T20s, he has taken 37 wickets at an average of 26.05.

Speaking at the pre-match press conference about his arrival in the tournament, Will O'Rourke said, "I think it's a pretty exciting opportunity to be able to come over here in such a good league. It's just having the experience, even just in training and stuff, bowing to world-class players is going to be obviously big for my game. If I'm lucky enough to get a chance to play out there, I'd obviously like to take that with my hands."

The Lucknow-based franchise will next play the Pat Cummins-led Sunrisers Hyderabad in the ongoing 18th edition of the cash-rich league on Monday at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow.

LSG, sitting at the seventh spot with five wins and six losses, have a crucial home clash at Ekana Stadium against SRH, who are at eighth spot in the table with three wins and seven losses, giving them six points.

Squads:

Lucknow Super Giants: Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Ayush Badoni, David Miller, Abdul Samad, Avesh Khan, Prince Yadav, Akash Maharaj Singh, Digvesh Singh Rathi, Ravi Bishnoi, Shahbaz Ahmed, Himmat Singh, Matthew Breetzke, Shardul Thakur, Manimaran Siddharth, Aryan Juyal, RS Hangargekar, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Arshin Kulkarni, William ORourke, Akash Deep.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan(w), Sachin Baby, Heinrich Klaasen, Aniket Verma, Abhinav Manohar, Pat Cummins(c), Harshal Patel, Jaydev Unadkat, Zeeshan Ansari, Eshan Malinga, Travis Head, Mohammed Shami, Harsh Dubey, Rahul Chahar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Kamindu Mendis, Atharva Taide, Simarjeet Singh, Smaran Ravichandran.