David Willey, who played for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the last two seasons of the IPL, was picked at his base price of INR 2 crore by LSG in December’s auction in Dubai.

However, LSG head coach Justin Langer revealed on Wednesday that Willey would not turn up for his franchise at the start of the season, having spent two months representing Abu Dhabi in the IlT20 and Multan Sultans in the recently concluded PSL 2024.

“With Mark Wood pulling out of the tournament and also David Willey won’t be coming now either, that means we lack some experience,” Langer told ESPNcricinfo. “But what I’ve also seen in the last couple of days is that we have enormous talent. Some of our guys have had some injuries but they all look very fit at the moment.

“They look fit and healthy and they’re very hungry, so we’ll just have to manage them well so that we can get them through and work through the whole tournament, not just the start of the tournament. We’ve got one overseas player up our sleeve if required, where we might be able to add some experience.”

Willey is the second Englishman to be unavailable for the start of the tournament for LSG: earlier, Mark Wood had pulled out of the entire season to manage his workload ahead of the T20I World Cup in June. Lucknow named Shamar Joseph as Wood’s replacement, but are yet to name a replacement for Willey.

Langer backed rookie Delhi fast bowler Mayank Yadav to fill in for Wood: “Mark Wood is a world-class bowler, isn’t he? And he pulled out after the auction, which is disappointing but this is the world we live in.

“We also have Shamar Joseph. We have Mayank, who bowls with very good pace. Hopefully we can replace, not [Wood’s] experience, but his pace with Shamar Joseph and Mayank. He’ll be missed – of course he’ll be missed, he’s a world-class bowler – but this is the world we live in and we will adapt and we will be okay.”

Subscribe to the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel for post-match analysis, player interviews, and much more.