CHENNAI: When the BCCI called for the review meeting on Thursday, among the key issues to be discussed were injury management and the roadmap to next year's ODI World Cup. The meeting, which happened during the first half of the day, was attended by head coach Gautam Gambhir, skippers Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer and the BCCI top brass, including Devajit Saikia. Chief selector Ajit Agarkar, who was expected to join, did not attend the meeting as he was out of town due to personal reasons.
Saikia, who addressed the media later in the day, said that the meeting was to discuss the Sri Lanka, England and Ireland series and road towards the World Cup rather than any individual player. He, however, quashed speculations over Rohit Sharma's future, much like he did after the Lord's match where the former captain scored a century.
Both Agarkar and Gambhir have remained non-committal over Rohit's place in the ODI World Cup, and after two low scores in England, reports emerged that the former captain will play his last match at Lord's. Though he hit a ton, India lost the series. However, in the aftermath, Saikia had said that there has been no discussion on Rohit's future. On Thursday, when asked about the former captain, Saikia said: "He is playing superbly in all matches. So what more do you want? In the last match he scored 138 runs. So why is there a speculation? So I do not want to give some fodder for the speculations".
The BCCI secretary, while declining any discussion on Agarkar's tenure, said that the focus will be on designing the future tours programme in such a way that player's workload is managed. With injury management being one of the key discussion points, Saikia said that players seem to get injured because of the stringent schedule that is in front of them. "If you look in England, we had 15 players who went for the ODI and out of that 3-4 players got injured during the match but we have to think about how they have played two months of IPL prior to that. So, all this takes toll on the health of the players also and to avoid those kinds of situations and what best we can do under the present windows and present FTPs, we are trying to find some ways out," Saikia explained.
The other issue was the number of players who have been injured at CoE and the return to play protocol in place. Several players in recent times did not make the cut despite being named in the squad raising questions over CoE and injury management. Saikia said that the protocol is in place, but the topics were revisited to ensure the best way forward for players. "Today's discussion was totally general in nature and what policy and what protocols we have to maintain regarding maintaining the fitness level of every player, not in any individual and what is in the best interest of the team, we have considered that only. And we have taken the feedbacks from the captains and the head coach who are the right persons to give us the information so that we chalk up a proper strategy to avoid all these kinds of unwanted situations during any international or bilateral matches," he said, adding that the BCCI is a well-oiled engine and there is no communication gap.
Women's Champions Trophy
Meanwhile, Saikia expressed his delight in India hosting the inaugural Women's T20 Champions Trophy which will be played at Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai and BCA Stadium, Kotambi (Vadodara) in February next year. "The BCCI is always ready to host this kind of international event. We are ready to accommodate any international event at any point of time. At the last moment, Sri Lanka could not host this tournament and the BCCI offered four venues out of which two venues were selected and we are going to host it in a very good manner," he said.