'I'll Give You a Little Secret': 2003 WC Winner Reveals How India Can Take Brett Lee's Example to Keep Jasprit Bumrah Fit For ICC Events

The Indian team management giving regular rest to several senior players in recent times has raised eyebrows. The likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami have skipped quite a few series in the past year or so.

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Critics of the practice argue that these players aren’t playing enough cricket to merit rest on such a regular rate. However, the BCCI has already stated that workload management is among the priority for the team management.

Former Australia spinner Brad Hogg thinks that fast bowlers need to be managed carefully to ensure they remain injury-free and are available to be selected for major tournaments. And for that, he advises that the medical staff needs to be ‘top-notch’ as well.

“If you want Bumrah at his peak for Test cricket and the T20 World Cup and other tournaments, your medical staff have to be top-notch. When you are critiquing teams and when you see Bumrah doing not so well, that is probably a period where his training loads have dampened off," Hogg told Hindustan Times.

“He is definitely up there. But with all fast bowlers around the world, I think they have got to manage carefully because they are your main asset in any team. Yes, you’ve got your batters and spinners (but) the workload on the spinners isn’t as harsh as on the fast bowlers," he added.

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Hogg, who was part of Australia’s 2003 ODI World Cup winning squad, revealed how his team managed the workload of Brett Lee in the lead up to the marquee event.

“I’ll give you a little secret, 2003 World Cup Brett Lee. We had a Test series before that but the whole thing that leading up to the World Cup was for him to be at his peak. And he ended bowling some of the quickest balls ever seen in that tournament. That happened because of him sitting down with the physios and planning everything through to that particular moment for him to peak in that World Cup," Hogg said.

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