Several Indian players suffered injuries recently, putting the role of CoE in question.
India is the services Jasprit Bumrah, Sai Sudharsan, Washington Sundar, Hardik Pandya, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Harshit Rana in the ongoing Sri Lanka Test series as they are all dealing with a spate of injuries. There are a few players who have been injured from a long time and there is no update on their progress, while some players are getting injured frequently.
The questions have been made against head coach Gautam Gambhir, chairman of the selection committee Ajit Agarkar, and the BCCI's Centre of Excellence (CoE).
However, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar believes that it's regrettable that the physios at Bengaluru's CoE have been put under the investigation. Most of the Indian players have recently had hamstring ailments, and the famous opener says this type of setback is down to the players' training routines.
“While Bumrah has a knee injury, it is seen that most Indian players suffer from hamstring injuries. Clearly, there’s something wrong with their training, and that’s why these recurring hamstring injuries. These injuries happen when they are playing for India, but unfortunately, the blame is put on the physios at the BCCI centre of excellence,” wrote Gavaskar in his column for Mid-Day.
“The so-called biomechanics, where a bowler can bowl only so many deliveries in the practice nets, is a questionable practice. Even in the IPL, it is learnt that some of the overseas physios don’t allow the bowlers to bowl more than 20 balls in the nets. If in the match you will be bowling 24 balls, that is, if you don’t bowl no-balls and wides, then how is bowling a lesser number in the nets going to help?" he added.
Gavaskar also questioned the need for athletes to put in the hard yards in the gym day in and day out, stating it's more vital to be match fit. He also asked for closer analysis of exactly why these setbacks are showing up again and again.
"It’s an issue that needs a good, hard look at why these injuries are happening again and again. It is more important to be match fit than gym fit. But then, maybe I am from a generation that had different ideas on fitness," wrote Gavaskar.
Shubman Gill, India Test and ODI captain, had shared his frustration about rising injuries that deprived the team management of first-choice players while choosing the playing XI.