Sehwag, Ishant Sharma Add to Injuries before ODIs; Gambhir Fit

Gautam Gambhir has had his falls. Yet it would appear that he will be featuring in the India England ODI series after all. The same though cannot be said for Virender Sehwag and Ishant Sharma.

Gautam Gambhir

After taking on the bulk load of the work with Zaheer Khan breaking down on the first day of the first Test, Ishant Sharma has had to tough it out. Considered having fallen off the bandwagon, his promising progress towards recovering his best form meant a longer, more tedious work routine in the form of India’s tour of the West Indies and thereafter the four Test series in England.

While the amount of overs bowled would have been appalling from India’s perspective given that the England batsmen applied themselves beautifully to the Test format while the Indian batsmen struggled, that is not the reason why Ishant Sharma will not be playing in the ODI series. Rather apparently Ishant Sharma suffered a ligament injury to his left ankle during the third Test at Edgbaston and managed to pull through the fourth Test at the Oval after some amount of recuperation. However, Ishant Sharma requires a longer rest and rehabilitation period and the Indian selectors have wisely eventually decided to drop Ishant Sharma’s name from the list of India's ODI squad for England that also sees the absence of Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh from India’s ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 winning squad.

Virender Sehwag poses another conundrum. If his selection is being questioned, dropping him has only highlighted the fact. Sehwag returned to England for the third Test after India lost the first two Tests. Originally designed to make it to all four Tests, Sehwag made a late entry after his recuperation post shoulder surgery did not go as planned.

Sehwag landed in England to find his shoulder still off his concern with also temporary partial deafness to deal with. However, the Indian captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, did not seem too concerned and Sehwag returned with a pair in both innings of the third Test although he did score thirty-three runs in the Oval Test.

However, it was pretty obvious that Sehwag was nowhere close to his best and quite naturally given that he had not played any cricket since he decided to undergo surgery midway through the IPL 4 season when the Delhi Daredevils failed to qualify for the business end of the tournament. It now appears though that it is not just rustiness that is Sehwag’s problem but also, the fact that his shoulder is continuing to trouble him as a result of a hasty return which has not given him enough recuperation time.

Gautam Gambhir continues to pose an enigma. Injuries, freak accidents, all seem to be coming in the way of a consistent playing Gambhir. His recent injury – a mild concussion upon trying to take a catch off Kevin Pietersen but failing to do so and only ending up hitting his head on the ground meant that the Indian batting line up was disturbed once more in the final Test with only Rahul Dravid coping nicely over the four Test series with the injuries to the openers. Gambhir though will not be flying home and instead is expected to take his place in the Indian ODI line up for the first ODI.