‘Dhoni, Sachin, Yuvraj never got ruled out due to back injuries’ – Former India opener’s bold statement on current fitness levels among Indian players

Star India players Jasprit Bumrah and Shreyas Iyer are injured and are missing the current international tours due to their respective back injuries. On one hand, the Kolkata franchise skipper missed the Border-Gavasker Trophy and will miss the ODI series against Australia, while on the other hand, the Mumbai franchise player is missing international cricket from the last edition of the Asia Cup and is expected to miss the game for the next six months as well.

Amidst this, former India opener, Virender Sehwag opined that Indian players are becoming injury-prone because of their workout schedules. At a time where Men in Blue are struggling with player injury, the Delhi-born cricketer asserted that legends like Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh hardly ever experienced such setbacks in their illustrious careers.

Basu Shanker was with the Indian team for a lot of years, and he made the same programs for all player: Virender Sehwag

“There is no place for weightlifting in cricket. Instead, you should do the exercises that improve your game. Weightlifting will give you strength, but will also increase stiffness and soreness. In our days, Aakash Chopra, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, MS Dhoni, or Yuvraj Singh, nobody were ruled out due to back injury, hamstring, or quadricep injuries,” Sehwag was quoted as saying on TRS Clips.

Sehwag, further, revealed that Basu Shanker, a former India performance coach, used to create uniform training schedules for all Indian cricketers. When asked about his, earlier, interactions with Ravichandran Ashwin, who was then playing for the Punjab side, the former Delhi franchise player said that the star all-rounder used to do clean-and-jerk workouts because ‘it was in trend’.

“Basu Shanker was with the Indian team for a lot of years, and he made the same programs for all players. Why should there be the same program for Ravichandran Ashwin and Virat Kohli? When Ashwin was with the Kings XI Punjab, he told me he was doing clean-and-jerk workouts because it was in trend. Athletes train from childhood for clean and jerk and still get injured. Imagine a cricketer starting when he’s over 30 years old. Both Ashwin and Axar had problems with their knees because of this workout,” the 44-year-old added.