The Indian team is currently missing so many players due to injury that almost an entire playing XI could be formed from them. In recent memory, the injury situation in Indian cricket has not been this dire.
Clearly, from a time when fitness was the primary requirement under former skipper Virat Kohli, the side has come a long way, and it is hurting. The situation is so serious that a report by news agency PTI said BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia will be meeting Head of Cricket VVS Laxman on Sunday to take stock of the rehabilitation management programme at the Centre of Excellence (COE).
There are also rumours that the COE and the BCCI’s current selection committee have not always been in sync with regard to injury management timelines and the release of some players before they had ticked all the boxes.
Full list of injuries
According to PTI, India will be missing the services of Jasprit Bumrah (knee swelling), B Sai Sudharsan (left big toe injury), Harshit Rana (hamstring), Nitish Kumar Reddy (hamstring) and Washington Sundar (quadriceps) due to various injuries. Akash Deep (lower back stress fracture) has been out for the longest time since Bengal’s Ranji Trophy semi-final defeat.
White-ball specialists Hardik Pandya (quadriceps), Varun Chakravarthy (hamstring) and Prince Yadav (hamstring) are also at the Centre of Excellence, where the Sports Science team has been overworked without a figurehead since the resignation of Nitin Patel in early 2025. Right now, the challenge is to get all these players back on the park.
Sudharsan and Bumrah were included in the squad subject to fitness, but the COE’s team of experts decided to exercise caution, looking at the bigger picture.
“Yes, secretary Saikia will be in Bengaluru to take stock of the situation along with VVS Laxman. There is a meeting scheduled between the two. It is not known whether national team head coach Gautam Gambhir or chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar will join online. It will be interesting if both Saikia and Laxman front up and answer a few media queries amid so many conjectures,” a BCCI source in the know told PTI on condition of anonymity.
The issue of Harshit Rana reaching England distinctly overweight has not gone down well with the selection committee.
Similarly, the selection committee was initially made to believe that Bumrah and Sudharsan would be available for at least one of the two Test matches.
Water retention in Bumrah’s knee
However, once the dust settled, it was found that Bumrah, following the impact injury, is dealing with water retention in his knee, which requires more time to heal.
In Sudharsan’s case, he had been batting for 75 minutes a day for some time, but the pain in his big toe still persists.
Nitish Reddy tried to increase his pace by 7 to 8 kmph, and that put a strain on his hamstring and quadriceps.