By Niharika Raina
New Delhi, May 18 For far too long now, Indian cricket has been surrounded by news of injuries to various first-choice players, many of which are recurring in nature, leading to former India left-arm pacer Zaheer Khan stating that something is very wrong with cricketers getting big injuries.
Jasprit Bumrah hasn't played since last September after suffering a recurrence of a back injury, which kept him out of the Asia Cup before. The latest flare-up of the injury kept Bumrah out of the T20 World Cup, every series India played since then and Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023.
Bumrah was close to playing for India ahead of ODIs against Sri Lanka in January but was ruled out and is now undergoing rehab at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru after undergoing lower back surgery in New Zealand to fix the recurring issue.
Not only Bumrah, fellow pacer Prasidh Krishna has been out of action since last year due to a stress fracture while Shreyas Iyer's recurring lower-back issue this year saw him undergo surgery in England.
Moreover, since February 2022, fast-bowling all-rounder Deepak Chahar has suffered injuries to quadriceps, back, a quadricep tear and then a hamstring injury in between IPL 2023, though he's back on the field now for Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
"I think I am equally puzzled as you on this. While bowlers are mentioned, there are some batters who have been having some serious injuries. That is something which is beyond my understanding."
"It has to do with the combination for sure and I believe something needs to be looked at carefully in terms of how they are approaching the whole season or training and their rest-to-recovery ratio, as well as a whole lot of other things."
"It's very difficult to pinpoint right now to just one word to say exactly what is going on. I would say something is going very wrong for all these guys to get injuries, that too so big injuries," said Zaheer, an IPL expert for JioCinema, in a select virtual media interaction.
After Australia won the ODI series 2-1 in March, India skipper Rohit Sharma indicated the workload of World Test Championship Final and ODI World Cup-bound players could be monitored during a gruelling two-month period of IPL 2023.
For the Indian players, including Rohit himself, they will have very little turnaround time as the World Test Championship final against Australia begins on June 7 at The Oval in London, ten days after IPL 2023 ends.
Zaheer feels that the bowling load of the bowlers should be upped right now to help them prepare for the long spells of bowling in Test matches.
"As a bowler, the more you bowl, the better it is for you. That's the way I always have looked at it. When you are looking at the workload, I always believe that when you are talking about IPL as a tournament and T20 as a format, your high-intensity overs are 64-70 and that's the kind of overs which you are looking at."
"It's not a very high workload in terms of the match overs, so you can always manage yourself. In fact, when you are looking at a Test match final, you are talking about upping this workload as you will be bowling 18-20 overs in a Test match day, which is going to be at high intensity."
"From the workload management point of view, for a bowler, it's about getting yourself ready to spend that day on the field for 90 overs and then coming back again and doing it the next day if required. So, that's the kind of preparation required and workload should be upped right now rather than being decreased."
With the Indian team practically getting only one week to prepare for the all-crucial finale clash against Australia at The Oval, bowlers will be required to make adjustments immediately in terms of format, weather, conditions, body clock and switching to bowling from white kookaburra to red dukes ball.
Zaheer signed off by saying preparing for the intensity and load of bowling multiple overs in a day of Test cricket from bowling only four overs in T20 cricket will be the biggest challenge in terms of adapting for the bowlers.
"Switching from a white-ball to a red-ball is not that much of a challenge I feel. But getting one ready to keep up with the expectations of workload, that is something which is important. Like, how you get yourself ready and since you are talking about Test match and T20 format, for a bowler, he's spending 20 overs on the field under high intensity and bowling four overs at that intensity."
"But in a Test match, your requirement is going to be 18-20 overs in a day and yet come back the next day and bowl another spell or two. That is something you have to prepare for and figure out in your own routine that what's the ideal way of getting yourself ready to keep up with that challenge."
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