Shubman Gill concerned with players reporting unfit after every few games

India’s ODI skipper Shubman Gill has criticised the injury breakdown of his bowlers after “every second or third game”, questioning whether they are taking their fitness seriously with the World Cup coming up next year.

The Indians went down 1-2 to England in a three-match ODI series, losing by 27 runs in the deciding third game on Sunday. Before the start of the series, two pace-bowling all-rounders — Hardik Pandya and Nitish Reddy were ruled out due to injuries.

Budding bowling all-rounder Harshit Rana also sustained a hamstring tear during the T20I series, ruling him out of the ODIs. In the second ODI, Washington Sundar complained of hamstring injury while Jasprit Bumrah developed an impact injury in the second game and missed the series-decider. 

“Yes, absolutely,” Gill admitted when asked if there are concerns about so many niggles.

 “If you look at the squad, the first squad that we announced, out of that, at least five players did not play this match. So one player gets injured, you try to play a different combination. There are two players, a different combination. But I think after every match, if a player is missing, somewhere we are missing a few tricks,” Gill put forth his point very clearly.