Former India captain Kapil Dev urged the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to make it mandatory for the top players to play domestic cricket amid the recurring injuries and the side’s Test struggles. Team India are without three of their key players – Jasprit Bumrah, Washington Sundar and Sai Sudharsan- for the upcoming Test series in Sri Lanka.

Talking about this, Kapil Dev said at the launch event of Bengaluru Blasters ahead of the inaugural JITO Premier League (via Sportstar): “Playing domestic cricket is very important. The reason why Indian teams struggle against spin is because the top players don’t play enough domestic cricket. That’s where the BCCI should put its foot down and make everyone play multi-day matches. The other aspect is that the younger generation will get to learn from the top players. In recent times, India has not been the best against spin bowling. They play too many T20s and ODIs. Test matches are a different ball game. I hope they can put their heads together.”

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Kapil Dev also said that the mismanagement of workload is resulting in the Indian pacers constantly dealing with injuries. Veteran pacer Jasprit Bumrah has been on and off because of his availability over the past several years due to injuries. More recently, Harshit Rana, Hardik Pandya and Nitish Kumar Reddy were also sidelined for different parts of the white-ball series to England due to injuries as well.

“One should know about one’s own body. There is too much T20 cricket happening, so you have to be careful about the toll it takes on the body. Our body is actually not tuned to being a fast bowler. Our body is more tuned to being a batter. The BCCI should look into how much workload can be given to a fast bowler,” concluded Kapil Dev.