Despite injuries to four main cricketers — Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja — in the current Indian team for the World Cup, the Indian team management is keeping its fingers crossed.
Sources said that the team management is of the opinion that when playing cricket almost round the year, niggling pain and injuries are bound to happen, but there is no reason to panic at this stage. It was revealed to Dr Cricket that even in 2011, there were fitness issues with four top cricketers in the team and those were the really big names.
Both Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag had shoulder problems and couldn’t throw the ball or bowl in the match as part-timers. Despite this they played all the matches of the tournament, which was co-hosted by India along with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Even in 2011 the pace attack suffered fitness issues with Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra, but the team management didn’t panic. Indian captain MS Dhoni managed his resources pretty well and made use of Munaf Patel, who was the last minute replacement of Praveen Kumar. Sadly, Kumar had missed the tournament due to an injury which, at that time, was taken as a big blow to the side. But, in the end, Munaf became the unexpected hero of the World Cup winning team.
Similarly, Dhoni is prepared for any casualty and is ready to make most of the resources he has got with his team. “He is one captain, who knows how to use his resources. He has done it in the past and won practically everything as the leader. He is doing his bit as the captain to mentally prepare his bowlers,” the source added. With four cricketers facing Saturday’s fitness test, things should be clearer next few days for the management who may just have to factor in a replacement.
