Southee ruled out
Black Caps paceman ruled out of twenty20 competition
Last Updated: September 21, 2011 11:46am
Southee: Out of Champions League
New Zealand paceman Tim Southee has been forced out of the Twenty20 Champions League series due to a knee injury.
Southee was expected to travel to India to join his Indian premier League side the Chennai Super Kings before he was forced to pull out of the competition on Tuesday.
The Black Caps man had become a star of the shortest format of the game after being a recent recipient of the ICC Twenty20 International Performance of the Year award.
The Chennai Super Kings will begin their Champions League campaign with their first match on September 24, but will be without the services of Southee.
Southee will be staying back in New Zealand to undergo treatment on the knee in the hope of being fit and available for his country's upcoming tour of Zimbabwe.
"Tim has suffered some cartilage damage to his left knee while preparing for the Champions League," said New Zealand director of cricket John Buchanan.
"He requires further assessment to determine the seriousness of the injury but initial signs indicate that he is unlikely to require surgery.
"A call on his availability for the Black Caps' tour of Zimbabwe will be made closer to the time."
Southee has 22 wickets in 19 international Twenty20 matches, with five of them coming in just eight balls which included a hat-trick when New Zealand beat Pakistan by five wickets last December - a display which gained him the ICC award.
