Sunrisers Hyderabad, the new IPL outfit, have suffered a blow ahead of the tournament with star player Shikhar Dhawan being ruled out due to injury for at least their opening tie against Pune Warriors, to be held on April 5.
"Shikhar Dhawan at this stage will not be available for the first game. We are obviously working closely with the BCCI and the medical team with regard to his progress," Sunrisers coach Tom Moody told reporters here today.
"We are hoping that within a couple of weeks he will be available to join the team," he added.
Dhawan, who scored fastest ever century on debut in the recently-concluded Test series against Australia, had sustained an injury during the series.
Asked how many matches Dhawan is likely to miss, Moody replied: "We don't know as yet. We are hoping that he is going to have a speedy recovery."
Stating that the team has a good mix of youth and experience, the coach said that the efforts are being made to improve the bonding among them.
"It (preparation for the IPL) has been going on well. Our first official training session will be this afternoon. We have had a number of meetings with players. Myself, Waqar (Younis), who is the bowling coach and our assist coach...We spent a lot of time on a individual basis," he said.
"For us obviously it is new. Lot of new faces we need to get familiar with. So we spent a good time getting to know the players. We had a good team evening, a good bounding session, which we will continue to do over the next week also.
"Lot of international players are scheduled to come in the next few days. We are obviously excited," Moody added.
