Ravindra Jadeja’s knee injury turned out to be a major setback for India in the ongoing Asia Cup 2022. Jadeja was ruled out of Asia Cup immediately and went under the knife back home. As a result, the all-rounder is unlikely to regain full fitness before the T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia. As per a report by Times of India, the move has reportedly frustrated Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) as Jadeja got injured while doing ‘adventure activity’.
“He had to balance himself on some kind of a ski-board as part of an adventure activity – not part of the training manual at all. It was absolutely unnecessary. He slipped and twisted his knee badly, which led to a surgery,” the source revealed.
Jadeja had a successful surgery earlier this week and will start his rehabilitation soon. After Jadeja’s departure from Asia Cup 2022, the defending champions could not get the team combination right and lost their Super 4 clashes against Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively. To make up for Jadeja, they had to include left-handed batter Rishabh Pant and Deepak Hooda down the order.
“What’s surprising here is, Head Coach Rahul Dravid hasn’t ‘lost his cool’ given how the injury occurred. Ideally, one would have expected Dravid to question this entire process. All said, the bottomline is – India will travel to Australia without Jadeja,” the source added.
In Jadeja’s absence, Axar Patel was picked in the squad from standbys. Axar did not get game time before India got knocked out of the tournament. In the dead rubber, he bowled economically conceding 24 runs from his quota of four overs.
Before getting injured, Jadeja played a crucial knock against Pakistan in India’s campaign opener. He got promoted up the order to counter left-arm spin and scored 35 runs in the middle overs. The left-arm off-spinner was potent with the ball too in both group stage games.
