Fifteen Indian cricketers have been injured in 2026. Jasprit Bumrah’s left knee. Varun Chakravarthy’s Grade 2 hamstring tear. Washington Sundar’s hamstring. Harshit Rana’s meniscus and then his hamstring. Nitish Kumar Reddy’s quadriceps. Akash Deep’s back stress fracture. Sai Sudharsan’s toe.
The list runs long enough that captain Shubman Gill raised the alarm after the England ODI series. Speaking at Lord’s on July 20, he said India missed five players from the original squad by the third match, and that players who completed 11 World Cup games “are unable to finish 2-3 games” now.
India could not field a full-strength playing XI for a single match of the England tour. The Sri Lanka Test series lost Bumrah, Sudharsan, and Sundar before it began.
Into this debate, Sunil Gavaskar has made the sharpest intervention yet. Writing in his Mid-Day column on August 16, 2026, he defended the BCCI Centre of Excellence against the growing criticism and pointed the blame elsewhere.
“While Bumrah has a knee injury, it is seen that most Indian players suffer from hamstring injuries. Clearly, there’s something wrong with their training, and that’s why these recurring hamstring injuries.”
Sunil Gavaskar, Mid-Day column, August 16, 2026
The pattern Gavaskar identified is hard to argue with. Of the 15 injured players in 2026, the majority suffered soft-tissue injuries: hamstrings, quadriceps, muscle strains. These are overuse and preparation failures, not freak accidents.
Gavaskar went further. He questioned the entire modern approach to workload management and biomechanics that now governs how Indian fast bowlers train.
“The so-called biomechanics, where a bowler can bowl only so many deliveries in the practice nets, is a questionable practice. Even in the IPL, it is learnt that some of the overseas physios don’t allow the bowlers to bowl more than 20 balls in the nets. If in the match you will be bowling 24 balls, that is, if you don’t bowl no-balls and wides, then how is bowling a lesser number in the nets going to help?”
Sunil Gavaskar, Mid-Day column, August 16, 2026
A bowler restricted to 20 deliveries in practice is expected to bowl 24 in a match, often under pressure, on tired legs, in heat. The gap between training intensity and match intensity is where muscles give way.
The blame chain: who is actually responsible
Gavaskar’s most pointed observation was about accountability. He noted that these injuries happen when players are representing India, not while they are at the Centre of Excellence. Yet the COE physios absorb the blame.
The BCCI is already reviewing its medical setup. Head physiotherapist Kamlesh Jain and team doctor Dr. Rizwan Khan face scrutiny after the Sri Lanka tour. Questions have been raised about whether Nitish Reddy was fully fit when he played the third ODI against Afghanistan, and whether Harshit Rana was rushed back too soon after knee surgery.
But behind these individual cases sits a structural problem. The Head of Sports Science and Medicine position at the COE has been vacant since Nitin Patel stepped down in March 2025.
VVS Laxman, the COE director, has publicly acknowledged that multiple candidates, including Andrew Leipus, an Australian specialist, and the All Blacks’ sports science head, all accepted and then withdrew. The post remains unfilled 17 months later.
Without a centralised authority, players move between IPL franchise medical teams, state association physios, and the national setup with no single system tracking their workload, recovery, or injury risk. Former NCA physiotherapist Ashis Kaushik identified this gap directly: there is no centralised monitoring system in place.
VVS Laxman addressed the criticism at a press conference in Bengaluru on August 9, saying the “CoE is not a rehab centre” and that it has “a bigger responsibility and mandate given by the BCCI.” His point was valid. The Centre of Excellence was built to develop peak performance, not to be a hospital ward for players broken by year-round cricket.
But the reality is that the COE has become exactly that. A BCCI source told The News Mill that players are “dumped onto unsuspecting CoE physios” after IPL injuries, with franchise and financial pressures complicating rehabilitation.
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The strength and conditioning setup has also been in transition. Soham Desai was replaced by Adrian Le Roux, and the coaching staff lost Ryan ten Doeschate (who left for KKR) and fielding coach T. Dilip (whose contract ended). Each departure disrupts the continuity of player management.
Gavaskar summed up his position with a line that cuts through the noise: “It’s more important to be match fit than gym fit.” He acknowledged this might sound like generational bias. It is not.
When players can complete 11 World Cup matches but cannot finish a three-match ODI series, the issue is preparation philosophy.
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The blame in Indian cricket always rolls downhill. A fast bowler breaks down mid-series, and the first question is what happened at the COE. Never what happened during the IPL, where franchise physios set their own protocols and workload limits that the BCCI cannot override.
Gavaskar is the first prominent voice to say this plainly. The people catching the blame are the ones who see the players last, not the ones whose training programs broke them. Until one medical authority tracks a player from franchise nets to international match days, this cycle will not change.
Also Read:
Bumrah, Sudharsan, Sundar Out of India Test Squad for Sri Lanka
Auqib Nabi Replaces Bumrah for Sri Lanka Tests
