On Wednesday, the New Zealand leg-spinner, Ish Sodhi has been signed by the Rajasthan Royals as a replacement for the injured Afghanistan bowler Zahir Khan for the Indian Premier League (IPL), 2018. Sodhi has played 15 Tests, 22 One-Day Internationals (ODIs) and 26 T20 Internationals for New Zealand so far. He was picked from the Registered Available Player Pool (RAPP) list and this will be his first outing in the VIVO IPL. Rajasthan Royals will play their next VIVO IPL 2018 game against the Delhi Daredevils at Jaipur on April 11.
Afghanistan's Zahir Khan has joined the lengthy injury list of IPL 2018, as Rajasthan Royals have replaced him with New Zealand leg-break bowler Ish Sodhi. RR had fought off competition from Mumbai Indians to snap up the left-arm chinaman bowler, who was impressive in the Under-19 World Cup. Zahir's injury, however, has turned RR's attention to a more experienced spinner in Sodhi. The Kiwi spinner, who could add weight to RR's relatively inexperienced spin department - comes with a very good economy rate - 7.43 in T20Is and 7.66 in T20s - and has 36 wickets in 26 international fixtures in the format.
Sodhi also has the experience of excelling in India, famously during the World T20 of 2016, where he picked 10 wickets in five games. That performance included his best-ever in the tournament - 3 for 18 runs against India. Like Imran Tahir in IPL 2017, Sodhi too was the No.1 T20I bowler at the time of the player auction and went unsold, before being roped in as a replacement bowler. Sodhi is currently fourth on the list of T20I bowlers.
