BCCI, IPL franchises likely to tighten workload programme

Chairman of the national selection committee, MSK Prasad, did not specify whether the chosen 15 players will be advised rest in the later part of the IPL.

Mumbai Indians and India pacer Jasprit Bumrah had got injured in the fixture against Delhi Capitals in IPL 2019.

 

As the national selection committee announced the 15-member India squad for the World Cup on Monday, the chairman of the committee, MSK Prasad, made it clear that performances in the Indian Premier League weren’t taken into consideration.

Prasad insisted that the selectors decided to ‘more or less’ go with the team which played the home series against Australia last month.

“We have said earlier that we (were) very much close to picking the side that we picked against Australia, so I didn’t really see the IPL form. If you go by the IPL form, there are other people who have done exceptionally well. Mayank Agarwal, Shreyas (Iyer), (Shubman) Gill, Prithvi (Shaw) have been doing well but we did not consider the IPL (performances),” Prasad said.

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The chairman also admitted that now with the final squad announced for the World Cup — which begins in England from May 30 — the Indian team’s physio, Patrick Farhart, will constantly be in touch with all the IPL franchises in a bid to monitor the workload of the players.

“The team management, along with Patrick, is looking into the workload management programme. They are in constant touch with the (respective) physios of IPL franchises,” Prasad said.

Workload management has been the buzzword in Indian cricket ahead of the World Cup and one of the physios from an IPL team confirmed to Sportstar that they have been communicating with Patrick. “Every IPL franchise is very particular about maintaining the workload of the players and this being a World Cup year, the focus is more on the fitness levels,” the franchise physio said. “These days, even the players know how to handle things and now every team has apps on their mobile phones through which they can keep a tab on their workload and other fitness levels. That becomes easier for the national team physio to monitor situations better,” he said.

Prasad, however, did not specify whether the chosen 15 players will be advised rest in the later part of the IPL.