India’s former World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev has urged the players to play more in domestic circuit to avoid recurring injuries ahead of the Test series against England. Jasprit Bumrah suffered a knee injury during the ODI series against England and missed the third and final game at Lord’s. He was subsequently ruled out of the Test series against Sri Lanka.
Furthermore, Hardik Pandya and Nitish Kumar Reddy are currently recovering from a quadriceps injury. Moreover, Harshit Rana made a comeback after recovering from a knee injury but suffered a fresh injury on the UK tour. India’s ODI captain Shubman Gill also suffered from cramps in the first and third ODI against England when he went past the 50-run mark.
Varun Chakravarthy is out with an injury whereas Prince Yadav was also injured in the second T20I against Zimbabwe and thus the long list of injured players have put India on the backfoot.
Kapil Dev said via Sportstar, “Playing domestic cricket is very important. The reason why Indian teams struggle against spin is because the top players don’t play enough domestic cricket. That’s where the BCCI should put its foot down and make everyone play multi-day matches. The other aspect is that the younger generation will get to learn from the top players.”
“In recent times, India has not been the best against spin bowling. They play too many T20s and ODIs. Test matches are a different ball game. I hope they can put their heads together.”
Dev highlighted that a lot of T20 cricket is being played across the globe and the BCCI should handle a player’s workload.
“One should know about one’s own body. There is too much T20 cricket happening, so you have to be careful about the toll it takes on the body. Our body is actually not tuned to being a fast bowler. Our body is more tuned to being a batter. The BCCI should look into how much workload can be given to a fast bowler,” said Kapil Dev (via the aforementioned source).
India will next take on Sri Lanka in a two-match Test series, starting August 15.
