The latest headlines regarding the Indian team doesn't make any of the Indian fans smile. It says that all the three top front line bowlers are not fit enough to play the president's XI game starting tomorrow. Zaheer and Sreesanth have already been replaced and Harbhajan is not a sure starter to the tournament as well. As the selectors would have sat down to pick a replacement for Sreesanth in Munaf Patel and Zaheer in Mithun, there still remain a few unanswered questions.
What is the NCA doing to keep the fitness of players in India. Is there a fault with the system or is there fault with players? Blaming the system can be totally meaningless. Even players like Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and Venkatesh Prasad have evolved from the same system. Dravid has just missed two test matches since his debut and has the record of playing second most number of consecutive test matches(94) and no one can ever forget Anil Kumble playing against West Indies even with his jaws broken.
Now this projects another question into the minds of the fans. Are the players lacking in commitment level? If that is so then the players should not be allowed to play even the domestic tournament. The advent of IPL has justified this fact as well. Not many players have converted their franchise level performances into international ones. Yusuf Pathan and Rohit Sharma are the best examples of this. Those players who lack in commitment level and in fitness are the least wanted players by any team. Yuvraj Singh, one of the finest fielder of the world looked so lame in the field in the World T 20. Subsequently he was dropped from the squad of Asia cup. These are all points to ponder for the selection committee. Yuvraj was neither in form with the bat or ball and was nor fit.
Once the selectors find that the player is losing some form, they send him back to the domestic circuit and allow him to get some form. But the selectors are least worried about the fitness of the players and they want the player to perform till he is able to and give him a break only when he requests for it. This is what ends up in fatigue factor and the players struggle to keep themselves fit. When the player requests for a break, the entire nation criticize him as a money eater who plays only the cash rich IPL. But no one really realizes that IPL is mainly cricket. Money is just a by-product of IPL. Only a committed player could be able to perform in IPL too.
One solution to this fitness issue is to keep rotating the players and giving them regular break. But by this way India would be projected as one of the weak nations around the world. It must be the players who put more stress on fitness rathes than skill or form. A player who is fit can always get back to form easily, but a player who has lost fitness takes a lot of time to come back. Spain's Fernando Torres who won them the Euro 2008 did not score even in the just concluded WC and certainly his future is in doubt. He has not shown any signs of getting back to form and in the finals he played only the last 15 minutes of the 120 minutes that were played and he played an unusual left winger role.
So whatever the mentors of the present generations teach them, just teach the kids how to be fit and consistent. Once a player is fit, his form and victories are sure to come by.
