As the Indian team prepares to take on Sri Lanka, the focus is on the players who are not in the team. Jasprit Bumrah (left knee ‘niggle’), Sai Sudharsan (stress reaction in right foot and toe), Hardik Pandya (quadriceps, setback in recovery), Harshit Rana (muscle strain sustained after return from right knee ligament injury and surgery), Nitish Reddy (quadriceps), Washington Sundar (hamstring), Akash Deep (back stress) are missing.

The suspicion that players carrying injuries play in the IPL to the detriment of the country’s international prospects is growing. The IPL is admittedly an easy target. But that does not make it an implausible one. There’s too much money and prestige involved (for the owners and sponsors especially) for it to be otherwise. The BCCI is asking the right questions, but it might not like the answer.

The regularity with which elite cricketers pull a muscle or injure themselves might even suggest OTS or Over Training Syndrome. In recent years, American Simone Manuel, the first Black woman to win an individual Olympic swimming gold revealed she had OTS, bringing the condition into popular discourse.

Fitness issues

Cricket fitness is not to be confused with athletic fitness. A cricketer may be relatively inactive for long periods, and then suddenly need to sprint, dive, jump, throw, bat, or bowl at high intensity. You be at slip without touching the ball for 89.5 overs of the day, yet be sharp enough to catch off the last ball. Such fitness made Rahul Dravid for one, a great slip fielder.

The needs of individual skills in the game differ; wicketkeepers train differently from fast bowlers, for example, although a basic level of fitness has to be maintained. Players understand their bodies better than they did a couple of generations ago, and teams are accompanied by professional trainers and physios with precise routines for them.

Not so long ago, the Indian physio’s slot was the fiefdom of a gentleman whose greatest service to the team was occasionally cutting a player’s hair or running errands for him (and family). The fittest players then, Kapil Dev (who didn’t miss a single Test with a fitness issue; he played 131 of them), and Sunil Gavaskar (who didn’t believe in overdoing the gym routines, yet knew how to keep himself fit, as he continues to at the age of 77) might have been the exceptions. Despite Tiger Pataudi (superbly fit himself) laying emphasis on fitness, it never took precedence over specific skills.

Today, with so much cricket being played in so many formats (five, if you include The Hundred and T10), and over so many days in the year, fitness has become a key issue. Indian players understand the importance and focus on diet, sleep, physical workouts and keeping stress-free to maintain a certain level. The Board of Control for Cricket in India has introduced the yo-yo test and the Bronco test to quantify ‘fitness’.

‘Over fitness’ may not be real, but over training is. Younger Indian players, so conscious of matching up to the best sometimes appear like the taught strings of a tennis racquet or a tightly stretched string in a musical instrument. A slight disturbance, you hear a ‘twang’ and there goes the hamstring.

Virat Kohli, possibly the fittest Indian cricketer, has inspired a generation. He evolved as player and man who at the start his career was seen as a party-going, slightly overweight cautionary tale but soon became a focussed, fitness-conscious captain and the world’s No. 1 batter. “I know I can play 49 overs and still run 10, 12 in the last over to win a game,” he once told an interviewer.

Between 1500 and 2000 players take part in the domestic season in India, in varying conditions and at different times of the year. Injuries are a part of an athlete’s career. Yet, what is concerning now is not the inevitability of injury, but its regularity in the national squad which has the best coaches and physios available and pays focussed attention to fitness.

Do we ask too much of our players? Do the players ask too much of their bodies? Rotating players is the modern way. But when injuries persist, it is good to study patterns however uncomfortable the picture that emerges.