Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma. Image Credits: Twitter

Back injuries have plagued Indian cricketers such as Jasprit Bumrah and Shreyas Iyer. Both are set to miss the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023. Besides, many of the former cricketers have cited workload fatigue as the reason for recurring injuries of players.

Moreover, after the conclusion of Australia’s tour of India, Indian players are set to feature in yet another gruelling season of IPL which is set to kick off on March 31.

Team India skipper Rohit Sharma was asked in the press conference about the workload management of players in the IPL. Sharma in his response reiterated that BCCI has already released the advisory–and it is up to players and franchises.

Rohit added that the players must take care of their own bodies.

Rohit Sharma in 3rd ODI
Rohit Sharma in the 3rd ODI. Image Credits: Twitter

Indian skipper on workload management in IPL-

“I mean, it’s all up to the franchises now, the franchises own them [the players] now, so we’ve given some indications or some kind of borderline kind of thing to the teams. But at the end of the day, it’s up to the franchise and, most importantly it’s the players you know, they have to take care of their own body,” Rohit said after the completion of the 3rd ODI against Australia.

For the first time, it is reported that BCCI made it mandatory for IPL teams to provide reports on Indian players’ workloads during IPL to the National Cricket Academy (NCA), as World Test Championship (WTC) final and ODI World Cup 2023 is scheduled to be held this year.

Earlier, after Bumrah’s injury Indian cricket board stated to keep a tab on their premium fast bowlers’ workload in the coming edition of IPL along with NCA coaches.

“They [players] are all adults. So they have to look after their body and just if they feel that it’s getting a little too much, they can always talk about it and have a break in one or two games. I doubt [if] that will happen but,” he further added.

While in terms of IPL 2023 scenarios, Iyer is the skipper of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR)–the 29-year-old pacer is an important part of Mumbai India’s pace attack, Bumrah has been out of cricketing action since September 2022.

Bumrah recently has undergone surgery owing to his back injury, while Iyer was ruled out of the ODI series after he complained about pain on the 3rd day of the fourth Test at Ahmedabad against the Aussies.

“Look, yeah, it is concerning because … we are missing the players who are actually playing XI players, you know … they regularly play in the playing XI,” Rohit said. “But honestly, everyone’s trying their best to get everyone on the path, we’ve been focusing a lot on management of the players, which is why you keep seeing we have to rest certain players at certain point in time,” concluded Sharma on player injuries and workload management in IPL.

Whereas, former Indian head coach, Ravi Shastri has voiced his opinion that BCCI should notify different IPL franchises about the probable WTC final players in their squads so that they are not overcooked during this session.

“Players are frustrated as well. They want to play they don’t want to miss out. So yeah, I mean it is a little sad, but at the end of the day, you cannot really do too much. I can see, and I can vouch for it, that the people working behind the scenes are working really hard with all these players and freakish injury can happen at any point in time, like Shreyas [Iyer] was the best example.
“He was sitting the whole day and he just went to take a knock. And you know the injury happened to him. And there’s nothing you could do about it, and I mean, the only thing we can keep in mind is managing players and giving them enough breaks. And I think from our side we’re doing that,” stated the Indian skipper on Iyer’s injury.
As India lifted the BGT 2023 trophy by 2-1, Australia made a strong comeback to seal the ODI series 2-1 series and dethroned Men in Blue to become the new no.1 ranked ODI team in the latest ICC rankings.