Cricket News: What Rishabh Pant's unfortunate injury means for India and the Delhi Capitals

Thankfully for all involved, he was injured but not life-threatening. Since then, his MRI scans have generally been positive, and the updates surrounding him have been positive. 

However, that doesn't change the fact that Rishabh Pant will miss a fair bit of cricket action, thanks to this unfortunate incident. 

There's never a good time to get injured but the beginning of this year was awful timing for Pant, who would have been chomping at the bits to play an all-important Test series against Australia at home. 

Pant's record against Australia is excellent, and lest we forget, he hit the winning runs when India finally breached the fortress known as The Gabba in Brisbane. 

So he will be massively missed in the Tests India will play – and the team knew his importance in the format, given he was rested from the white ball series against Sri Lanka to do strength and conditioning work at the National Cricket Academy (NCA). 

His absence will likely be filled by KS Bharat, the man who has forever been his understudy in the most extended format of the game. 

Whether or not that is a like-for-like replacement is up for debate, but it is the best India can do, given he will most likely be unavailable for the Tests. 

It's a lot simpler for the team to replace him in white ball cricket, given many options are waiting for a sustained run in ODIs and T20Is. 

Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson, and even KL Rahul given he's been donning the wicketkeeping gloves recently will be able to fill in for Pant in the white ball series' that India plays. 

In fact, Pant's unavailability, for the time being, will make things easier for players like Kishan and Sanju due to the fact that neither of them got a long rope in white ball cricket. 

Kishan's status as a white ball starter was uncertain even after his double ton against Bangladesh, and Sanju Samson has spent more time on the bench than in the middle for India. 

Where things get tricky is for Pant's Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Delhi Capitals. Not only is he their first-choice wicketkeeper-batsman, but he is also their captain. 

Someone like David Warner can quickly fill the captaincy void; he's won an IPL title with Sunrisers Hyderabad and has plenty of leadership experience. 

But given their lack of Indian wicketkeeper options, they will likely have to accommodate Phil Salt into their line-up, and that will require some rejigging of their four foreign player options. 

Last season they generally went with Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Rovman Powell and one foreign pacer between Mustafizur Rahman and Anrich Nortje. 

But Pant's absence could be bad news for Marsh, given that the other three seem pretty undroppable at this point. 

Either way, it won't be easy for the side to fill the absence of their skipper – but it does seem like they will have to make do without him for this season.