The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and National Cricket Academy (NCA) are in no mood to rush Hardik Pandya’s comeback to the Indian team.
Instead, Hardik is undergoing an 18-week-long high-performance programme keeping in mind the next two T20 World Cups, CricketNext reported on Tuesday (December 5).
The 2024 T20 World Cup is scheduled to be held in the West Indies and USA while the 2026 edition will take place in India.
Pandya was last seen in action during India’s World Cup 2023 match against Bangladesh in Pune on October 19. He picked up an ankle injury during that game, which ruled him out of the remainder of the tournament. Since then, the all-rounder has been working at the NCA to regain his full fitness.
According to the report, the BCCI could have picked Hardik for the white-ball leg of the South Africa tour or the Afghanistan T20Is in January next year but once he failed to recover in time for the latter stages of the World Cup, the board and NCA decided to chalk out his “comprehensive rehabilitation”.
“We speak of workload management. This is precisely what it is all about. Is there a doubt on his ability as a T20 cricketer? No. What we rather need is setting long-term goals and ensuring endurance levels remain up to the mark,” CricketNext quoted a source as saying.
As per the report, NCA has planned an 18-week personalised high-performance programme for Pandya. The programme will track how the cricketer is reacting to various activities including cardio, strength training, functional training, rest and recovery.
A similar programme was planned for Jasprit Bumrah, Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul when they were undergoing rehabilitation at the NCA earlier this year.
“It is not something new. Shreyas, Bumrah and KL underwent similar programmes during their long injury layoffs and the routine is designed keeping the next assignments in mind. Say for KL, wicket-keeping, subcontinent heat and everything was taken into account. Similarly, Bumrah was eased into cricket with Ireland T20Is before he went full throttle in the Asia Cup,” the source added.
(CricketNext Inputs)
