Australian coach Justin Langer has held the Indian Premier League liable for the myriads of injuries in the Indian as well as in the Australian clan in the on-going “Border Gavevaskar” series. Several players from both teams have been declared unfit or injured during the course of the Down Under series. The Indian squad has been majorly affected by the line of injuries which has seemingly damaged their chances to an extent to retain the “Border Gavaskar” trophy.
IND vs AUS: Is IPL to be blamed for the series of injuries?
Justin Langer, in a recent interview, blamed India’s top-tier league as one of the prime reasons behind the set of injured players. Indian Premier League, which usually begins in March, got post-ponded till September last year due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The league, which was staged in Dubai, started on September 19 and went on till November 11, 2020. The Indian players, then, directly left for Australia, where they were kept under quarantine for 14 days. The tight schedule between the back-to-back IPL games and the Australian tour seemingly inflicted a series of injuries in the Indian squad.
However, a couple of Australian players were also ruled out of the series due to their respective injuries. “It’s really interesting how many injuries there have been throughout this summer,” said Langer. “We suffered through it during the white-ball series and (India) through the Test series. “We’ll review this, but I can’t help think that the IPL this year probably wasn’t ideal timing for anyone, certainly for such a big series like this,” added Langer.
After Jasprit Bumrah’s injury, the Indians are left without all of their first choice pacers. Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav picked up injuries in the first and the second Test respectively. Ishant Sharma and Bhuvneshwar Kumar were not included in India’s squad as they were declared unfit for the tour. All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja and Rishabh Pant got injured in the third Test at Sydney and wicket-keeper KL Rahul returned to India after getting injured during a practice session before the third Test. Australia’s David Warner picked up a groin injury during the ODI-series but he re-joined the Australian squad before the third Test.
“I love IPL. I look at the IPL now like I used to look at (English) county cricket for young players, you go and play county cricket and it helps their development enormously,” said Langer. “I think it’s the same with the IPL with our players, it helps their white-ball development. “But the timing of it … probably wasn’t ideal and I wonder if that’s having an impact on the injuries we are seeing for both teams throughout this summer.”
