BCCI secretary Saikia to visit COE to take stock of injury crisis, meet VVS Laxman

Concerned by the spate of injuries that has rocked the Indian team of late, BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia will meet Head of Cricket VVS Laxman on Sunday to take stock of the rehabilitation management programme at the Centre of Excellence (COE).

India will be missing the services of Jasprit Bumrah (knee swelling), B Sai Sudharsan (left foot big toe), Harshit Rana (hamstring), Nitish Kumar Reddy (hamstring) and Washington Sundar (quadriceps) due to various injuries. Akash Deep (lower back stress fracture) has been out the longest, since Bengal's Ranji Trophy semi-final defeat.

Adding to that, white-ball specialists Hardik Pandya (quadriceps), Varun Chakravarthy (hamstring) and Prince Yadav (hamstring) are also at the Centre of Excellence, where the sports science team has been overworked without a figurehead since the resignation of Nitin Patel in early 2025. The challenge now is to get all these players back on the park.

Sudharsan and Bumrah were enlisted in the squad subject to fitness, but the COE's team of experts decided to exercise caution, looking at the bigger picture.

"Yes, secretary Saikia will be in Bengaluru to take stock of the situation along with VVS Laxman. There is a meeting scheduled between the two. It is not known whether head coach Gautam Gambhir or chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar will join online. It will be interesting if both Saikia and Laxman can front up and answer a few media queries, with so many conjectures," a BCCI source told PTI on condition of anonymity.

There are also suggestions that the COE and the current selection committee have not always been in sync regarding injury management timelines, with some players released before they ticked all the boxes. The issue of Harshit Rana reaching England distinctly overweight has not gone down well with the selection committee.

Similarly, the selection committee was initially given to believe that Bumrah and Sudharsan would be available for at least one of the two Test matches. However, once the dust settled, it emerged that Bumrah, post-impact injury, has water retention in his knee that requires more time to heal.

In Sudharsan's case, he had been batting for 75 minutes a day for some time, but pain persists in his big toe. Nitish Reddy tried to increase his pace by seven to eight kmph, which took a toll on his hamstring and quadriceps.