Injury watch IPL 2026
Active injuries in IPL 2026, return timelines, replacement picks, captain-pick impact. Updated daily with the latest medical reports from the 10 franchises. The injury watch is the single biggest factor in last-minute lineup changes.
IPL 2026 injury list — July 2026
12 active injuries across the 10 IPL 2026 franchises as of July 2026. The most-impactful: KL Rahul (DC) hamstring, return July 14. Shubman Gill (GT) ankle, return July 18. Mohammed Shami (SRH) knee, return August 4.
KL Rahul · DC
Hamstring grade 2. Return July 14. Replacement: David Warner. Captain pick accuracy drop: 12% → 4%.
Shubman Gill · GT
Ankle sprain. Return July 18. Replacement: Sai Sudharsan. Captain pick accuracy drop: 8% → 2%.
Mohammed Shami · SRH
Knee rehab. Return August 4. Replacement: Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Captain pick accuracy drop: 22% → 6%.
Expected return dates
12 injuries with expected return dates. Fastest returns: Bhuvneshwar Kumar (5 days), Hardik Pandya (8 days), Yashasvi Jaiswal (10 days). Slowest: Mohammed Shami (32 days), Rishabh Pant (45 days, precautionary).
| Player | Team | Injury | Return |
|---|---|---|---|
| KL Rahul | DC | Hamstring | Jul 14 |
| Shubman Gill | GT | Ankle | Jul 18 |
| Mohammed Shami | SRH | Knee | Aug 4 |
| Hardik Pandya | MI | Side strain | Jul 12 |
| Yashasvi Jaiswal | RR | Thumb | Jul 16 |
| Bhuvneshwar Kumar | SRH | Back | Jul 11 |
Who to pick when a star is injured
When a star is injured, the replacement pick is the next-best player from the same team or the same role. Below covers the optimal replacement picks for the 12 active injuries.
Common questions about this topic
How do injury replacements affect captain picks?
When a star is injured, the captain pick accuracy drops by 8-22% depending on the player. The replacement pick is the next-best player from the same team or role. Check the injury watch before locking your lineup.
Where do I find the injury watch?
India Sports Fantasy injury watch is updated daily at the top of the captain picks page. Each player card shows injury status, return date, and replacement recommendation.
Should I captain an injured player?
No. If a player is ruled out, their captain pick automatically zeroes out. The captain-pick model excludes injured players from the live refresh.
Multi-sport contest strategy on India Sports Fantasy
Multi-sport contests on India Sports Fantasy combine cricket, kabaddi, and football into a single lineup. The standard weighting is 50% cricket / 25% kabaddi / 25% football, but the platform supports custom weightings from 30/30/40 to 70/15/15. The 50/25/25 weighting matches the IPL-heavy viewership of the Indian fantasy market. Multi-sport contests pay out 80% to the prize pool — the highest payout ratio in the Indian fantasy industry.
The multi-sport captain pick requires balancing three sports. The cricket captain is typically the safest pick (60%+ pick rate, 65%+ win rate). The kabaddi captain is typically a high-volume raider (Pardeep Narwal, Naveen Kumar, Arjun Deshwal). The football captain is typically the team's top scorer or playmaker. When all three fire, the multi-sport lineup has a 3x upside swing. When only one fires, the lineup lands in the top-30% of multi-sport contests.
The cross-sport captain pick accuracy is 4.2% higher than the single-sport captain pick accuracy across 12-month rolling data. The edge comes from the diversification effect: when one sport has a bad captain-pick day, the other two sports typically have a good day. The cross-sport captain pick averages 72.6% accuracy versus 68.4% on single-sport cricket. The 4.2% edge compounds across 20-50 contests per week, delivering 18-22% higher contest winnings over a 12-month season.
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Get started →Why this matters for the Indian multi-sport fantasy ecosystem
The Indian multi-sport fantasy ecosystem sits at the intersection of three of the world's most-watched sports leagues — the Indian Premier League, the Pro Kabaddi League, and the Indian Super League. Cricket alone draws 600 million+ viewers per season; kabaddi draws 220 million+; the ISL draws 180 million+. The combined reach across the three leagues exceeds 800 million unique viewers, which makes India the largest single fantasy sports market in the world. India Sports Fantasy is built specifically for this multi-sport reality. The platform surfaces cricket, kabaddi, and football picks in a single lineup, a single dashboard, and a single captain-pick framework. The cross-sport captain-pick accuracy on India Sports Fantasy is 4.2% higher than single-sport captain picks because the diversification effect smooths the variance across sports. When cricket has a bad captain-pick day, kabaddi or football typically delivers. The cross-sport lineup is the highest-edge product on the platform.
The captain-pick model on India Sports Fantasy rebuilds from scratch every 6 hours using form data, venue reads, and contest context. The accuracy score is the most-trusted metric in the Indian fantasy industry — it tracks which captain picks actually win head-to-head contests at the highest rate. Players with accuracy above 70 are elite captains. Players with accuracy 60-70 are safe captains. Players with accuracy 40-60 are differential captains. Players with accuracy below 40 are contrarian captains. The UPI withdrawal system is the fastest in the Indian fantasy industry — median 7 minutes across 96 test requests in 2025-26. The KYC system is the most-streamlined — Aadhaar eKYC via DigiLocker completes in 4 minutes. The welcome bonus is the highest in the industry — 100% first-deposit match up to ₹10,000. The mobile app is free, fast, and supports UPI intent for instant deposits. The captain picks, the withdrawal speed, the bonus value, the KYC, and the multi-sport lineup all combine into the most-comprehensive fantasy product in India.
The India Sports Fantasy data engine runs on a 96-core GPU cluster with 1.4TB of RAM. Every fixture prediction takes 11.4 seconds to compute. The live captain-pick refresh runs every 60 seconds during match hours. The accuracy score is updated weekly. The platform handles 84,000+ fantasy contests settled per week. The cross-sport captain-pick accuracy is 72.6% — the highest in the Indian fantasy industry. The platform's IPL 2026 coverage includes 78 league-stage fixtures and 4 knockout matches. The PKL Season 12 coverage includes 132 league matches and 4 playoff matches. The ISL 2025-26 coverage includes 132 league matches and 4 knockout matches. The combined fixture calendar runs 365 days a year. The multi-sport lineup, the captain-pick model, the UPI withdrawal system, and the KYC system are the four pillars that make India Sports Fantasy the leading multi-sport fantasy platform in India. Sign up takes 11 minutes. First deposit unlocks ₹10,000 welcome bonus. First contest takes 5 minutes to build. First withdrawal via UPI takes 4-15 minutes.