Former India batsman Virender Sehwag has come up with an interesting reason for Team India’s recent injury woes. The Indian team has suffered a spate of injury blows in the last couple of years or so.
The situation has been so bad that even the National Cricket Academy’s role has come under the scanner. The NCA is responsible for monitoring and rehabilitating injured players. Several players have pulled up injured repeatedly despite being passed fit by the NCA
In recent months, the likes of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar and Washington Sundar have spend a good amount of time at the NCA due to their persistent injury issues. On the other hand, pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah has not played a competitive game since September last year due to a back injury.
And recently, Shreyas Iyer also suffered a back injury that has ruled him out of the upcoming three-match ODI series against Australia. The batsman suffered the injury while fielding in the fourth Test against Australia.
Virender Sehwag on Team India’s injury woes:
With Team India struggling with the injury setbacks, Virender Sehwag has opined that the players are getting injured in the gym and not on the field. The legendary batsman, as quoted by NDTV, said that there is no place for weightlifting in cricket.
“There is no place for weightlifting in cricket. Instead, you should do the exercises that improve your game. Weightlifting will give you strength, but will also increase stiffness and soreness.
“In our days, Aakash Chopra, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, MS Dhoni, or Yuvraj Singh, nobody were ruled out due to back, hamstring, or quadricep injuries,” said Sehwag.
“Whereas KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma, and Shreyas Iyer, have all dealt with such injuries. They are getting injured due to weight training. They get injured in the gym, not on the ground,” he added.
Speaking further, Sehwag stated that the Indian players should prepare a training program based on their own body, instead of trying to follow the routine used by Virat Kohli.
“We didn’t do any weight training in our days, but we were still able to play cricket all day. This could be Virat Kohli’s funda. But not everyone is Virat Kohli. You need to prepare a training program based on your own body,” said Sehwag.