Earlier this year, the BCCI said that the National Cricket Academy (NCA) will work in tandem with the IPL franchises to monitor the workload of Indian players shortlisted for the 50-over World Cup at home in October-November.
Considering the fact that the Indian team has also qualified for the World Test Championship (WTC) final, slated to be held at the Oval from June 7-11, the workload management has become paramount during the IPL 2023, due to be played from March 31 to May 28.
Meanwhile, India skipper Rohit Sharma has said that managing the workload of Indian players during the upcoming IPL is up to the franchises.
Even though the Indian team management has given the IPL teams "some borderline indications" about workload management, Rohit doubts that the franchises will follow it.
"I mean, it is all up to the franchises now. The franchises own them [the players] now, so we have given some indications or some kind of borderline kind of thing to the teams. But at the end of the day, it is up to the franchise and, most importantly it is the players you know, they have to take care of their own body," Rohit said as quoted by ESPNCricinfo after the ODI series against Australia came to an end on Wednesday (March 22).
"They [players] are all adults. So they have to look after their body and just if they feel that it is getting a little too much, they can always talk about it and have a break in one or two games. I doubt [if] that will happen but," he added.
The Indian team is currently dealing with a number of injuries. While Rishabh Pant is set to remain out of action for the major part of 2023 after sustaining multiple injuries in a horrific car crash last December, Shreyas Iyer is likely to undergo lower back surgery and will not participate in the IPL and WTC final.
Fast bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna have already undergone back surgery. No wonder, Rohit is concerned about the growing list of injuries.
"Look, yeah, it is concerning because ... we are missing the players who are actually playing XI players, you know ... they regularly play in the playing XI. But honestly, everyone is trying their best to get everyone on the path, we have been focusing a lot on the management of the players, which is why you keep seeing we have to rest certain players at a certain point in time."
"Obviously when you play so much cricket injuries are bound to happen. So not looking too much into it... what is available to you, what's in your hand, you can control that, and we are just trying to control all of that."
"Players are frustrated as well. They want to play they do not want to miss out. So yeah, I mean it is a little sad, but at the end of the day, you cannot really do too much. I can see, and I can vouch for it, that the people working behind the scenes are working really hard with all these layers and freakish injury can happen at any point in time, like Shreyas [Iyer] was the best example. He was sitting the whole day and he just went to take a knock. And you know the injury happened to him. And there is nothing you could do about it, and I mean, the only thing we can keep in mind is managing players and giving them enough breaks. And I think from our side we are doing that," Rohit concluded.
(With ANI Inputs)
