IPL 2020: The curious case of Rohit Sharma injury

Ever since injuring himself during MI's double Super Over loss to KXIP last month, Rohit Sharma's injury issue has become even more complicated.

Rohit Sharma during match 41 of season 13 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) between the Chennai Super Kings and the Mumbai Indians.

Hours after the BCCI president Sourav Ganguly stated that Rohit Sharma's omission from India's tour to Australia was due to the possibility of recurrence of his "hamstring tear", Rohit walked out to open the Mumbai Indians innings against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League on Tuesday.

Ever since injuring himself during the Mumbai Indians' double Super Over loss to Kings XI Punjab last month, Rohit's injury issue has become even more complicated. While Mumbai Indians referred to it as "hamstring strain" on October 23, the BCCI while announcing the squad on October 26 had stated that Rohit was being "monitored" without specifying an injury.

"You don't want him to get injured again. He has a hamstring tear and it will get ruptured again. It will then get longer for him to come back. But yes, there are people working with him," Ganguly told  PTI  on Tuesday. The BCCI chief added that the Mumbai Indians medical team had been working on Rohit along with India team physiotherapist Nitin Patel.

However, the franchise and the batsman sprung a second surprise in as many weeks later on Tuesday evening when Rohit walked out for the toss against the Sunrisers. While he wasn't asked about his fitness in detail during the toss interview, the move appeared to be a ploy to test his fitness ahead of the IPL Playoffs. Interestingly, hours after BCCI announced the squad for the Australia tour, Rohit had a full-fledged net session last week.

The sequence of events underlines the disconnect with the injury management mechanism of centrally contracted cricketers. Despite the BCCI medical team not deeming him fit for international cricket, his franchise may have cleared him for an IPL game since the BCCI fitness protocols are not binding on IPL franchises.

However, it would be interesting if Rohit actually manages to prove his fitness over the next week and boards a plane to Sydney from Dubai or the BCCI chief's apprehension of the batsman injuring himself again comes true.