Due to a knee injury sustained during an adventurous activity, all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja will miss the T20 World Cup in Australia this year. The injury has been so aggravating and embarrassing for Team India thus far that it nearly calls for an investigation.
The player got injured while participating in a water-based training exercise in the hotel’s “backwater” facility where the Indian squad was based while competing in the Asia Cup T20 event.
“He had to balance himself on some kind of a ski-board as part of an adventure activity – not part of the training manual at all. It was absolutely unnecessary. He slipped and twisted his knee badly, which led to a surgery,”
sources in the know of developments told Times of India.
The 33-year-old was subsequently ruled out of Asia Cup 2022, and he then took a flight to Mumbai, where he underwent surgery under the supervision of top orthopaedic surgeon and BCCI consultant Dr. Dinshaw Pardiwala.
Was the ski-boarding action necessary? Was it necessary for one of Team India’s most important players to participate in an adventurous activity before a tournament as significant as the World Cup?
According to TOI, some BCCI officials are already upset over how the injury occurred. Although no official inquiries have been made as of yet, individuals in the know claim that a comprehensive explanation will eventually be required because the injury is so severe and so freakish.
“What’s surprising here is, Head Coach Rahul Dravid hasn’t ‘lost his cool’ given how the injury occurred. Ideally, one would have expected Dravid to question this entire process. All said, the bottom line is – India will travel to Australia without Jadeja,”
sources add.
Team India, which got eliminated from the 2022 edition of the Asia Cup recently, may have a harder time finding a suitable replacement in Jadeja’s absence. In the opener against Pakistan, he bowled two overs and was the most economical of the group while also making 35 runs off 29 balls while batting at number four, which was an experimental move ahead of Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya.
Jadeja was once again among the bowlers with the best economy rate against Hong Kong in the next game, conceding only 15 runs in four overs for one wicket, but he did not bat in that match. And it is after this game that Jadeja experienced this freak injury and was then ruled out of India’s subsequent five-wicket loss to Pakistan.
