Chairman of selectors, MSK Prasad insisted that the selectors knew the injury update of incumbent Test wicket-keeper Wriddhiman Saha.
Meanwhile, Saha sustained an injury during the tour of South Africa. Thus he missed the last Test. However, he featured in the Indian Premier League for the Sunrisers Hyderabad without recovering his injury correctly.
This subsequently aggravated the injury, and as a result, he missed the final of the IPL. He also didn’t feature in the historic one-off Test against Afghanistan. However, Wriddhiman Saha was likely to be fit for the series against England.
BCCI then revealed that the 33-year-old is suffering from a shoulder injury. As a result, Saha missed the Tests against England and underwent surgery in England. BCCI and NCA together handled that case of the Bengal wicket-keeper.
However, MSK Prasad has insisted that the selection panel was well aware of Saha’s fitness as he denied any confusion.
“We keep getting the fitness reports of all contracted players undergoing rehabilitation in NCA on a regular basis. There is absolutely no confusion whatsoever. Patrick (Farhart, the physio) keeps me and my colleagues updated on the fitness status of every contracted player. It was pure speculation that the selectors were not informed about Saha’s fitness issues,” Prasad said to TOI.
“Let me clarify that we are well informed about Saha’s fitness status. In fact, apart from the information we get from Patrick, the performance statistics and fitness reports of all contracted and India ‘A’ players are tabled by our operations team in the selection committee meetings,” he added.