Albie Morkel returns to South Africa Albie Morkel returns to South Africa

IPL 2012

Albie Morkel returns to South Africa

Cricket +

	After hearing about the death of Louis Vorster, Albie Morkel had tweeted: 'Tonight I'm crying like a baby! Lost a great friend!' © AFP  Enlarge

Albie Morkel, the Chennai Super Kings allrounder, has returned to South Africa to attend the funeral of Louis Vorster who died after being shot during an armed robbery in Gauteng on Tuesday. Morkel is expected to return later in the tournament, though no date has been specified.

"Albie Morkel has travelled back to South Africa first thing this morning after hearing of the death of a very close friend at Johannesburg overnight," Stephen Fleming, the Super Kings coach said. "He goes with our best wishes and sympathies. He will take further part in the IPL, but we are not sure when that is. So on behalf of CSK, we extend our sympathies to Albie and obviously look forward to getting him back as soon as we can."

Ahead of their match against Pune Warriors, Super Kings could have selection issues following the poor form of opener M Vijay, who has scored 31 runs in five matches.

"The [pre-match] discussion will certainly revolve around players who have not been doing what they are expected to do," Fleming said. "We would like a player to be consistent with his performance. The coach's job is not easy one. It is up to me to [get] Vijay [back] to his usual form."

One of Vijay's possible replacements, Abhinav Mukund, is recovering from an ankle injury sustained during training before the start of the tournament. "He [Abhinav] is pretty much close to 100%. He is pretty much into the selection discussion. We have good cricketers in the team like [Anirudha] Srikkanth and Wriddhiman Saha, and it is a matter of a balancing act."

Super Kings had another injury scare in the previous match when captain MS Dhoni seemingly did damage to his hamstring. However, Fleming said that Dhoni has received adequate treatment and should be available for the Warriors match. "I think Dhoni is fine. He has been having treatment for the hamstring injury sustained in the last game. We expect him to play his full part in the [Warriors] game."

Super Kings are playing Warriors in their sixth match of the season in Chennai. They have lost three matches, including a loss to Warriors in Pune.