Indian players from the likes of Japrit Bumrah and Shreyas Iyer have been facing back-related injuries, meanwhile, on March 17, team India will take on Australia in the first ODI match of a three-match series, Iyer and Bumrah will be unavailable as they are still recovering from their misfortune.
Former Indian opener, Virender Sehwag, expressed his view that cricketers should avoid weightlifting training, and should not copy Virat Kohli in doing it, because Kohli has his own funda.
Sehwag stated 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 former Indian cricketer.
Iyer could not take part in Ahmedabad Test (BGT 2023) on the third day after complaining of pain before being ruled out of the ODIs too. There is also a good chance that he might miss a few games of IPL 2023, The right-handed batter suffered from back pain and missed the last two days of the fourth Test at Ahmedabad.
“Basu Shanker was with the Indian team for a lot of years, and he made the same programs for all players. Why should there be the same program for Ravichandran Ashwin and Virat Kohli? When Ashwin was with the Kings XI Punjab, he told me he was doing clean-and-jerk workouts because it was in trend.
“Athletes train from childhood for clean and jerk and still get injured. Imagine a cricketer starting when he’s over 30 years old. Both Ashwin and Axar had problems with their knees because of this workout,” he further added.
Former India performance coach, Basu Shanker used to make the same programs for all Men in Blue players. But Sehwag recalled his previous interaction with Ravichandran Ashwin when the latter was at Punjab Kings (PBKS), he revealed that the ace off-spinner became habitual to clean and jerk only because it used to be a trend.
Virat Kohli is back at the gym 💪
(via: @imVkohli) pic.twitter.com/MNXFb8AInD
— ESPNcricinfo (@ESPNcricinfo) November 28, 2021
“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,” concluded the 44-year-old.
Earlier, the 28-year-old batter stated that wrong exercise could be the reason for his stiffness in the back muscle, while star Indian speedster, Bumrah is out of cricketing action since September 2022, he recently went for surgery to cure his back injury, former players have suggested that the right arm pacer needs to change his action to get rid of frequent injuries.
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 Indian’s pace attack, whereas IPL 16, will kick-off on 31st March, with the opening match between defending champions Gujarat Titans (GT) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
Also read: It Is Going To Impact: Hardik Pandya On Shreyas Iyer’s Absence For Australia ODIs