Praveen Kumar

The Indian team’s major concern as Anil Kumble suggested is injuries. The World Cup is to kick off in 10 days and still Indian players seem to fight with their injuries. The Indian bowling department already is fragile and injuries woes continue to trouble more. Praveen Kumar, 24 had been sent back from South Africa tour previous month as a precautionary measure to convalesce at the NCA, Banglore. And, now, as the injury recovery didn’t go as planned and so he has been ruled out of the Indian Squad for the World Cup 2011.

This decision came a day after Praveen underwent a fitness test at NCA to guage whether he had recovered from injury.  Praveen was suffering from this injury since last month, before the start of ODI series in SA. Praveen has a great ability for swinging the bowl both ways and persistence to bowl long spells, although he bowls at slow pace. And, he has also been a regular in the Indian side for the previous two years after his debut in 2007. This is a big setback for the talented Indian seamer!

Praveen has made way for the peppy Sreesanth in the World Cup side. Sreesanth, has done well in Test Cricket for quite some time now. But, in ODI’s he has just been hopping and performing aggressive antics! His ODI economy is 6.01 clearly indicating that he is too sloppy in this format. And, since his debut in 2005 he has played only 51 ODI’s.  It will be interesting to see how his pumping acts turn up for India in the Cup.

Besides, Praveen there are some more injured players in the Squad. Sachin off-late has been suffering from a hamstring injury. Sehwag and Gambhir have an injury in shoulder. Zaheer also has been in and out due to various injuries! Well, let’s pray that all these brilliant players recover and deliver for India in the WC!

Tags: Anil Kumble, Banglore, BCCI, Cricket, ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, India, NCA, Praveen Kumar, R Vinay Kumar, Sreesanth, World Cup