Our Bureau
London
The Indian Test team is gearing up to face England in a 5-match Test series and there are a lot of questions knocking on their doorsteps. One of their main concerns is the chatter going around Jasprit Bumrah’s availability for all the matches.
The Indian selector Ajit Agarkar made it pretty clear that Bumrah is not going to be part of the team for all the matches. The decision was pretty evident after Bumrah injured his back in the Border Gavaskar Trophy in Australia last year playing all 5 matches. The injury made India’s pace bowler miss the very important Champions Trophy which India won eventually. But that made it clear that the team management had to manage his workload for him to have a longer career.
Ashish Kaushik who is the former head physiotherapist of National Cricket Academy was asked about the same and the physiotherapist had a different advice for the BCCI. He thinks that rather than giving too much rest a player needs to train and strengthen up more.
Kaushik said, “Strengthening a bowler enough to take the load of bowling is crucial. They will need to train and strengthen up, spend enough time on the ground and run enough in the form of conditioning programs and ensure the bodies can return in second and third spells and deliver in the same manner.”
According to his research, a player needs to maintain a certain amount of workload to move past injury concerns. By maintaining work load he doesn’t mean that the player should be played less as sometimes a player can also be under bowled resulting in high risk of injuries. He emphasized that they should maintain a balance and neither do too much nor too less than what their body can perform.
“There is an acute to chronic workload ratio for every player. Research suggests that a certain amount of workload must be maintained to reduce the risk of injuries and going above or below that workload could pose a risk. As much as you can be over bowled, you can also be under bowled. Workload is not only for bowling but training, too. It should be measured from all strenuous activities: bowling, batting, fielding, strength work, and conditioning work. It should not spike up or drop from where they can deliver,” he added.
