Rajasthan Royals on Thursday announced that South African pacer Nandre Burger will be replacing the injured Sandeep Sharma for their remaining Indian Premier League (IPL) fixtures. This will be Burger’s second stint with the Royals, having played for them last year and snapping up 7 wickets.
“Nandre Burger – the left-arm South African pacer – has previously played for RR in the IPL 2024 and picked 7 wickets from 6 games. He joins RR for Rs 3.5 Crore,” the IPL said in a statement.
31-year-old seamer Sandeep was ruled out of the season earlier this month after he suffered a fracture to his finger. He has played 10 matches for Rajasthan and taken 9 wickets.
IPL 2024. Powerplay. 153 kmph. Kuch yaad aaya? 👀
Nandre Burger will replace an injured Sandeep Sharma for the remainder of our IPL 2025 season. We wish Sandy a speedy recovery! 💗 pic.twitter.com/Q3cqD3dfkK
— Rajasthan Royals (@rajasthanroyals) May 8, 2025
“Sandeep Sharma has been ruled out for the rest of the season after suffering a fracture in his finger,” Rajasthan Royals had said in the statement.
“He showed immense bravery to continue bowling with this injury in the last match and everyone at the franchise wishes him a full and speedy recovery.” “The team management is actively working on finalising his replacement, post which an official announcement will be made,” the franchise had added.
Earlier on Thursday, Rajasthan, who are already out of the playoffs, have also announced South African Lhuan-dre Pretorius as a replacement for injured Nitish Rana, who has been ruled out of the remainder of IPL 2025 due to a calf injury.
A promising wicketkeeper batter, Pretorius is yet to make his international debut for South Africa but has shown immense talent with the bat. He has scored 911 runs in 33 T20 matches in his career with a highest score of 97. The left-hander will join Rajasthan for his base price of INR 30 Lakh.
Nitish has been one of the standout batters for an under-fire Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2025. The left-hand batter scored 217 runs in 11 matches at an average of 21.70. His tally for the season includes two half-centuries – a match-winning 81 off 36 balls against Chennai Super Kings in Guwahati and a 51 off 28 against Delhi Capitals in Delhi.
