England matching Pakistani injury lists knee for knee, hamstring for hamstring

Vaughan has flown back home to England. Shabbir Ahmed played a single twenty20 and Shoaib Akhtar just played for a couple of sessions of a test and both went home. Is anyone else a bit shocked by the spate of injuries that have befallen the English and Pakistani sides? I'm no doctor, but its safe to assume the amount of cricket being played today is reducing the shelf life of our cricketers. I remember supporting Gavaskar just last year when he ridiculed the complaints of modern players on being burnt-out.

"These players are turning out for their countries. It's an honour to represent your country. I would be willing to sweat 365 days in a year for India. Those who can't stand the heat should stay out."

At the time I thought it was silly for highly paid players to complain while they had the best health care possible provided to them. Mike Selvey's response to Gavaskar last year was apt and equally valid today. Some excerpts...

What Gavaskar fails or is unwilling to grasp is the idea that it is not the volume of cricket but rather the sheer intensity of it that creates the problems.

But this does not mean we should not listen to the rest of the world on this issue. When Brett Lee confesses that the petrol has run out and he is "bowling on fumes", it really does mean something. The home boards have a duty of care to state this in the strongest terms to the ICC.

The cricketing boards are really packing in the tours for commercial purposes, and the cricketers are feeling the adverse effects. I feel that the rift between team management and their respective boards with regards to player burnout is increasing. The management have no choice but to rest key players, and adopt rotation policies. New Zealand have implemented a rotation policy for a quite a while now. However, w hen you rest key players, the competition gets reduced, and the quality of match play goes down.

Woolmer, amongst others, recently spoke up against this hectic South Africa tour, and these collective voices against overburdening the cricketers are getting louder. No matter how good medical staffs are, it seems to me that they can't catch up to the pace of international cricket. Or maybe its just Pakistan that seems to be suffering a lot. Shoaib Akhtar, Shabbir Ahmed, Umar Gul, Razzak and Malik are all on the path to recovery from some ailment or the other. England also have Anderson, KP (though he was just unlucky), and Vaughan, who keeps finding new ways to injure his fragile body. The PCB has recently launched an inquiry into how these players are getting injured to often, and England, I'm sure, will soon follow and is also concerned.

We are concerned with the number of injuries we have had on this tour and we don`t want a repeat of this in future events," a senior PCB official said.

"The chairman PCB Dr Naseem Ashraf himself is going to look into this issue and we will have our medical panel examine all the players before the World Cup squad is finalized," said director, cricket operations, Saleem Altaf.

I never thought it would come to this for me, but there really is too much nonsensical cricket being played. The commercial aspects seem to have become the primary objective, and though the fans are getting what they pay for, injuries to players is undoubtedly the biggest side effect. It is also arguable whether the quality of cricket being played is deteriorating. Tim de Lisle's column in Cricinfo touches upon how this is changing the game we all love.

I love watching cricket so my suggestion is to have separate teams for separate forms of the game, thus each squad can focus on their specialty. Naturally some players are well-accustomed to several forms of the game, and they can be rotated. If twenty20 is the next big thing, then countries should develop pure twenty20 players. If the various boards develop a strong bench of players from which to choose from, not only will players develop their game since a lot more are seeing international cricket, but the fans are getting what they want. More cricket...

In a sense this is already being implement by most boards, and it is bound to become a staple for the cricketing nations in because in my opinion there is no way, the ICC will hold back on the amount of cricket being played. Its just not going to happen. Though I'm happy with our sport's success, I am worried about the people in charge and their obsession with Benjamins.

Shoaib's sudden hamstring injury - Perhaps there is more than meets the eye

Shoaib batted fine. Didn't seem to be in pain at all. And suddenly there is a hamstring injury? Where did that come from? The lack of information from the Pakistan camp is suspicious. Only time will tell what's going on, but it all seems a bit shady to me.

There was a dressing room argument in the morning of the 2nd day of the 2nd test match against South Africa. What was that all about? Sky Sports showed us the live feed, and it looked Shoaib was angrily 'talking' to Woolmer. Soon afterwards, they showed Inzamam trying to settle things down and a crowd of Pakistani players were hanging out. Obviously something went down today, but does it have anything to do with Shoaib not bowling anymore? Shoaib did come out and bat about a half an hour after the 'argument' after the fall of Sami. I tried to look for some telltale signs of perhaps a tiff, but he seemed to be focussed on the job at hand and was also communicating reasonably with Inzi...

I don't know...

I tried to look for the youtube video but its still too early.

Michael Vaughan plagued by bad luck

Vaughan unlucky streak continues. After a couple of decent games, where he looked confidant, he's now done in by a hamstring tear. In hindsight, the English selectors should not have been so eager to bring him back into the thick of things, without achieving a 100% fitness. Whether this latest injury is due to his overall lack of fitness or just a freak accident is debatable. But by risking to play him without significant first class games or a completely clean bill of health, the English selectors may have compromised his career.

I also think its quite unfair, especially to those who are actually scoring runs back in England, to bring in a fellow, who hasn't played much cricket at all, and make him captain once again. Its unprofessional and the state of England's international squad needs a revival fast. The world cup is around the corner. Though one might argue, a sound thrashing by even the minnows of cricket, in that tournament would be a sufficient wake up call.