Barbados suffers a huge blow: Steven Smith leave CPL and heads back to Australia

Steven Smith will be out of action from the Caribbean Premier League as he picked abdominal injury during the late stage of the tournament.

Steven Smith participated in seven games for Barbados Tridents and will now be heading back to Australia.

“He had a slight tear and he had to go back, so it’s a really unfortunate situation,” The coach Robin Singh informed before the game of Barbados against St Lucia Stars.

Steven Smith was banned from international cricket for 1 year by Cricket Australia due to the ball tempering saga in South-African tour of Australia. He played Global T20 in Canada for Toronto Nationals and Caribbean Premier League for Barbados Tridents to keep his rhythm going in the game.

The exclusion of Smith from rest of the tournament is a huge blow to plans of Barbados Tridents. Smith scored 185 runs with average of 26.42 and strike-rate of 127.58.

Smith played a crucial role in the win of Tridents against Patriots by scoring 63 runs off 49 balls and taking 2 wickets for 17 runs in three overs. His all-round performance helped him to grab his first man of the match award in CPL.

According to a source, the recovery process will probably take 7 to 10 days and it will not affect his participation in 2018/19 Australian cricket season. He will play for Sutherland Cricket Club alongside his former Australian teammate Shane Watson.

Barbados Tridents have not yet announced the replacement of Steven Smith. It will be interesting to see how Tridents will arrange themselves following omission of their star player from the league.