Experienced seam bowler Jacob Duffy picked up a low-grade quad strain during the 188-run loss to Canterbury at Hagley Oval.
He is a possible starter for Otago’s final game of the season which is against Northern Districts in Dunedin early next month.
But all-rounder Nathan Smith fractured a bone in his hand on Saturday and will miss the remaining three games
Otago’s next assignment is against Auckland in Invercargill later this week.
Matt Bacon is a likely replacement for Duffy. He was 12th man for the match against Canterbury.
Filling the other slot will be a challenge.
Otago has only used six bowlers during the first-class campaign this summer, so there is no obvious candidate.
Angus McKenzie had some success during the one-day campaign and right-armer Jarrod McKay is a contracted player and also had a run for Otago in the Ford Trophy.
One of those players may get the nod but that is a problem coach Rob Walter will have to work through later in the week.
In the meantime he was proud of the way his side battled back against Canterbury.
‘‘We are obviously disappointed we lost.
‘‘I think the key period was losing the wickets of Anaru [Kitchen], Mitch [Renwick] and Nick [Kelly] before lunch. That knocked the stuffing out of us,’’ Walter said.
‘‘But I’m pretty proud of the way the guys played to set up the game and I really felt we had a chance.’’
Some creative declarations on Saturday helped set up what could have been an exciting final day’s play.
Otago declared its first innings closed at 375 for six in reply to Canterbury’s monster tally of 517.
The home side rattled on more than 200 runs in rapid fashion in its second dig.
Opener Tom Latham clipped 106 from 82 balls and Canterbury declared at 209 for five.
That set Otago a challenging but not impossible target of 352.
The Volts resumed yesterday morning on 15 for none.
Openers Hamish Rutherford and Kitchen put their side on a stable footing. They added 82 for the first wicket.
Kitchen got trapped lbw for 45 when he tried to sweep a delivery from Cole McConchie.
His departure triggered a disappointing series of dismissals.
Mitchell Renwick found a way to steer an innocuous delivery from McConchie back on to his stumps for nine.
Nick Kelly got a decent ball from Matt Henry which took the splice of his bat and he was caught in the slips for a duck.
Dale Phillips tried to leave another from Henry but did not get his bat out of the way enough and chopped on without scoring.
Then Hamish Rutherford, who had got through to 39, swept a delivery from McConchie to the fielder second ball after lunch.
The Volts had lost five wickets for 18 runs. That was the game.
It was a poor period of batting and the promise of the exciting finish evaporated one terrible shot at a time.
The Volts limped through to 163 for nine.
Henry and McConchie took three wickets apiece.
In the other games, Central Districts (43 points) edged Wellington (22 points) by 60 runs in Napier and moved past Otago (32 points) on the Plunket Shield standings.
Auckland (44 points) and Northern Districts (48 points) had to settle for a draw in Whangarei.
Canterbury is on 80 points with three rounds remaining.
