A few months ago, before the 2023 edition of the IPL began, the Indian board had issued a media statement. Among other things, it mentioned that the National Cricket Academy (NCA) will work in collaboration with the IPL franchises and monitor the workload management of players expected to play in the World Test Championship final, which takes place soon after the completion of the tournament.
Even during the recent series against Australia, India captain Rohit Sharma reiterated that. Not in the exact words as the board’s statement, but he said that workload management is crucial before the big Test and that physical condition is something the players must understand themselves. He had said that a player is the best judge of his fitness and should prepare, play or rest accordingly.
A month into the IPL, we can see what kind of workload management or fitness monitoring has been done. KL Rahul, Jaydev Unadkat and Washington Sundar are out of the competition. Umesh Yadav and Shardul Thakur are carrying injuries. Of the five, only Washington is not part of India’s squad for the World Test Championship final beginning at the Oval on June 7.
It’s easy to say that NCA will work in collaboration with the franchises as far as workload management is concerned. It means that, if needed, certain players will not play all the matches. Now, which franchise is going to listen to this? They pay enormous amounts of money to these players and want full return of it, which means, they want to extract every ounce out of them.
Take a look at the players selected for the World Test Championship final. Cheteshwar Pujara is not in the IPL. KS Bharat is with Gujarat Titans but has not got a game yet because Wriddhiman Saha is their first-choice wicketkeeper. Other than these two, almost everybody in the India squad has either played every game or been injured out. Is that workload management?
This reminds us of the 2011 tour of England. A few days after the World Cup final, IPL started. Players knackered had to go through the grind of playing, training, travelling at odd hours and late night parties. A walking wounded Indian team travelled to England soon after and got thrashed 4-0. Zaheer Khan and Virender Sehwag were among those who had to be ruled out.
So by saying that workload management will be monitored, the board had practically pulled off a bluff. It is not possible. IPL franchises, for valid reasons, will try and make optimum use of their investment. I vividly remember an IPL team official saying that ‘to hell with international cricket, we are not going to release this player.’ I cannot name them though.
This means there is a distinct gap between what the board said and what is actually happening. So why did the richest cricket board in the world say something like that? We all know that the NCA’s injury management system itself is not good enough. It declares a player fit and that individual breaks down soon after. Jasprit Bumrah and Shreyas Iyer are recent examples.
So by naming a proven faulty system as a safeguard for injury and workload management in an environment, where it cannot have any control over the franchises, the board made a statement which was improbable. It sounded good but we all can see that it did not materialise. The IPL will go on for a few more weeks. Let’s see how many of those named in the India squad eventually travel to England and in what shape.