Board should look into India’s alarming rate of injuries
What an extraordinary Test series this is turning out to be! After India lost the first match from a potentially winning position in a ‘freak’ hour’s batting that saw them being bowled out for an abysmal 36, a whitewash by Australia looked the likely outcome, more so with Virat Kohli and Mohamed Shami (for different reasons) no longer available.
What’s transpired since has been straight out of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.
Shrugging off the trauma of the sensational collapse at Adelaide, India went on to win the second Test in a remarkable turnaround. Perhaps even more amazing was the manner in which the third was saved, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rishabh Pant, Hanuma Vihari and Ravichandran Ashwin batting out the last day against all odds.
By the time the fourth match started, India’s squad was severely depleted, resembling a battalion of the ‘walking wounded’ in a war zone.
Eight key players were out of commission, Kohli was on paternity leave.
Shami, and K.L. Rahul too were already back in India because of injury. Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Vihari, Ravindra Jadeja and Umesh Yadav were still in Australia, but all hors de combat.
This made picking the playing XI excruciating easy at one level, excruciating at another: few players to choose from, yet how to assemble the best combination to fight the Aussies?
The batting, despite Kohli not being there, was not as badly dented as the bowling. Having rightly decided be on the attack rather than defend (difficult, given the players available), the big question was whether to play two spinners and three pacers, or four pacers and a spinner.
The history of matches at the Gabba, where fast bowlers have been more successful, swung the mandate in favour of Thakur and Natarajan to join Siraj and Saini. For the spinner’s slot, Washington Sundar was preferred over Kuldeep Yadav to shore up the batting.
This meant India’s bowling attack had a collective experience of four Tests (Siraj 2, Saini 1, Thakur 1) and two debutants (Sundar and Natarajan) when they took the field at Brisbane! I can’t think of a less experienced bowling attack since representing independent India.
India’s performance so far at Brisbane has been admirable. The rookie bowling attack has handled the pressure well, shown fine skill and restricted Australia to 369. It’s not a small score, but nowhere near 450 that Tim Paine was expecting after choosing to bat first.
Had Rohit Sharma, after a sparkling 44, not been seduced into indiscretion by a delivery that Lyon held back cleverly seeing the batsman jump out of the crease, India would have been on equal terms with Australia going into the third day. Now Australia are a nudge ahead.
However, with Pujara and Rahane at the crease, Pant, Agarwal and Sundar to follow, there is quite a lot of batting to come. If India survive the first session without too much damage, this Test could be heading for a tantalising finish too.
Where grit, tenacity, commitment and character are concerned, India’s performance in this tour has been outstanding. Nevertheless, the number of players that have been injured is aalarming. It is abnormal, and in many ways have hurt the team’s prospects.
Kohli’s unavailability after the first Test was known in advance, as was Rohit’s unavailability for the first two Tests. There is not much that could be done with Shami and Jadeja suffering fractures either. But what of the others?
Umesh and Vihari have done in their hamstrings, Bumrah has an abdominal strain, Ashwin a sore back, and Saini limped off the field on the first day at Brisbane with an ankle problem that may see him not take any further part in the match.
Remember, Ishant Sharma and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, two seasoned fast bowlers, could not make the cut after getting similarly injured during the IPL. What are the factors causing so many Indian players — compared to those from any other country — to suffer such injuries?
Is it work overload, training regimens that don’t match individual physique, players not being attentive about their own fitness, poor assessment and treatment of niggles (by sports medicine experts attached to the Board) which then flare up into serious problems? Or are there other reasons?
This situation needs to be inquired into. The BCCI would do well to have a committee of experts study the issue and come out with a white paper on how to lick it. There are long term implications of the problem which must not be lost in the acclaim over the heroic performances in Australia.