London, July 20 (IANS) India captain Shubman Gill has called for a major overhaul in the squad’s fitness levels, expressing frustration over players failing to last even a three-match series. He stressed that the side cannot afford frequent injuries if they wish to remain serious contenders for the 2027 ODI World Cup.
India’s campaign was severely dented by a string of fitness setbacks, with key players sidelined due to injuries. Pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah missed the third ODI following an impact injury sustained in Cardiff, while Washington Sundar also suffered a hamstring injury during the same match.
Additionally, Harshit Rana was ruled out with a hamstring issue picked up during the England T20I series, and all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy missed the tour altogether after suffering a quadriceps injury during June’s home ODI series against Afghanistan.
“If you look at the first squad that we announced, at least five of the players did not play today,” Gill said after the Lord’s ODI. “When one player gets injured, you have to play a different combination. If two are injured, you play a different combination. I think if a player is missing after every match (due to injury), somewhere we are missing a trick.”
“Keeping the World Cup in mind, we have to play eleven matches in a row. And here the players are unable to finish a series of two or three matches. So something is missing somewhere. They play one or two matches, there’s a niggle and then we’re forced to play a different combination which we don’t think of playing. So all those things make it difficult if one morning you find out that a player has a niggle.
“And then it’s almost like, ‘do you want to take a chance?’ Someone is 80 per cent fit, you’re playing with five bowlers and if he bowls five overs and goes off the field, then who will you bowl? It is difficult. But somewhere as a group, we need to improve our fitness,” he said.
Gill also mentioned the reason behind India opting to go with just one spinner in Axar Patel was because the pitches in Birmingham and Cardiff were not favourable for spinners.
“Whenever spinners came on to bowl, we felt like we kind of had to go into a defensive route. Whenever the fast bowlers were bowling, it felt like something was happening,” Gill said. “That was the thought process behind not playing an extra spinner, maybe play a fast bowler because in the middle overs, you obviously want to create pressure and see if the chances get created,” he added.
Overall, reflecting on the series overall, Gill stated that India had a “pretty decent series” but felt they needed to become smarter in assessing conditions.
“Both the matches that we have lost, we were in the game for the majority of the game,” Gill said. “And I think it’s all about how long we can stay consistently in the game. It almost feels like we are in the game for about 80 per cent of the game,” he said.
–IANS
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