Billiat suffers hamstring injury in Soweto derby as Chiefs beat Pirates

Inform Zimbabwe international Khama Billiat (31) was an ‘unlucky’ man during Saturday’s Soweto derby pitting his side Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates after sustaining a first half hamstring injury.

The match was played at Orlando Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Chiefs’ coach Stuart Baxter confirmed Billiat’s injury to the media as well as of his teammate Leonardo Castro over the weekend.

The 68-year-old gaffer also went on to provide an injury update of the duo.

Castro also damaged his hamstring in the same match which saw Amakhosi complete a season double over their rivals, the Buccaneers, with a 2-1 victory.

“Both of them (Billiat and Castro) have hamstring injuries. They’re out but I’m guessing they won’t train for a week at least,” Baxter confirmed to the South African media.

“Leo’s is a bit worse because it pinged, Khama’s was also getting worse but I think we managed to get him off in time.”

The injury resulted in the former Warriors star being withdrawn in the 39th minute and was replaced by Kearyn Baccus.

But before he limped off nearly at the stroke of halftime, Billiat’s presence in the derby had already been felt.

He showed some flashes of brilliance in two occasions in the first 30 minutes of the league encounter.

He was heavily involved in Chiefs’ first goal that broke the deadlock to hand Amakhosi an early lead through Reeve Frosler.

Billiat passed the ball to Bernard Parker who then set up Frosler whose shot found the back of the net in the 18th minute.

Then eight minutes later, Amakhosi thought they had doubled the lead when Billiat assisted Keagan Dolly who also scored in the 26th minute but his goal was ruled off for an offside.

Meanwhile, Baxter was left an unhappy and disappointed man following the duo’s injuries.

“Both of those injuries are very disappointing because you know when you work at an elite club, your biggest enemies are soft tissue injuries,” he added.

“The reason they’re the biggest enemies, they are more or less been put out of business now because of our training methods.

“But we have two players in one game that both get hamstring strains. It’s something not right with our loading.” Nehanda Radio