Up to the franchise now – Rohit Sharma on player workload management

Indian skipper Rohit Sharma has said that it will be up to the 10 franchises to manage players’ workload in the upcoming IPL. India has been troubled by injury woes in the recent past and it will be imperative for the teams to manage the workload of the players to keep them fresh and injury-free.

Rohit revealed that the Indian team management and board have given all the IPL team some guidelines but in the end, it is up to the franchise and the players to manage the workload.

“It’s all up to the franchise now. Franchises own them now. We’ve given them some indications or some kind of border line kind of things to teams. But at the end of the day, it’s up to the franchises and most importantly it’s the players. They have to take care of their own body. They are all adults. So they have to look after their body and adjust if they feel like it’s getting a little too much, they can always talk about it and have a break in 1-2 games. I doubt that’ll happen but,” said Rohit in the post-match press conference.

Indian players like Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah, and Shreyas Iyer are currently out of action and all of them are expected to play a key role in India’s World Cup campaign, later in the year.

Rohit admitted that if players are not available for selection due to injuries then it is concerning for the team.

“Look it is concerning because if the players are not available it is concerning. And we are missing players who are actually Playing XI players. They regularly play in the playing XI. Honestly, everyone is trying their best to get everyone on the park. We’ve been focussing a lot on management of the players a lot. Which is why you keep seeing, we have to rest certain players at certain points of time. From our side we could do our best in terms of handling them. I mean, I’m not a specialist to tell you why the recurring injuries are happening. Of course the medical team of ours is definitely looking into all of this and making sure that come the World Cup we’ve got our best 15 players ready,” said Rohit.

“Obviously, when you play so much cricket, injuries are bound to happen. So not looking too much into it, what’s available to you, what’s in your hand you can control that. Not looking too much into what’s available to you, what’s in your hand you can control that. We’re just trying to control all of that. Players are frustrated as well. They want to play, they don’t want to miss out. It is a little sad but at the end of the day, you cannot really do much. I can see and can vouch for it that the people working behind the scenes are working really hard with all these players. Freakish injury can happen at any time. Shreyas was the best example. He was sitting the whole day, and he just went to take a knock and the injury happened to him. There’s nothing you could do about it. I mean the only thing we can keep in mind is managing players and giving them enough weeks and I think from our side we’re doing that,” he added.

Rohit Sharma will now lead Mumbai Indians in the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League.