New Delhi: Shubman Gill looked a bit out of character while talking to the media after the third ODI loss to Lord’s. Overall, the skipper is calm, largely balanced and always composed, and he seemed dejected after losing the third ODI series since taking over from Rohit Sharma ahead of the Australia tour.The frustration stemmed not from the cricket his team played in the England series and the previous games, but from the constant stream of hiccups, glitches and injuries that hampered preparations and never allowed India to field their strongest fielding squad.There has been a lot of experimentation and tweaking in the batting order while trying out combinations, but the injury crisis is a serious issue as the Indian team prepares for next year’s ODI World Cup.
The management has been keen to have adequate seam bowling options at the ready ever since discussions for the multi-nation tournament began, but both their primary and backup options Hardik Pandya and Nitish Kumar Reddy are camped at the BCCI Center of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru.While Reddy was injured in the ODI series against Afghanistan last month, Pandya has not played an ODI for India since the Champions Trophy final against New Zealand in March 2025. Even the developing No. 8, Harshit Rana, has suffered two injuries in the last six months.
If you look at the first lineup we announced, there were at least five players who didn’t play in this game
Shubman Gill
The spin bowling department has also been in trouble, with Washington Sundar having suffered several glitches in the past six months: a side strain ahead of the T20 World Cup and a hamstring strain this month. Varun Chakravarthy, who was India’s X-factor in winning the Champions Trophy, suffered a hairline fracture and was subsequently sidelined with a grade-two hamstring injury.To make matters worse, India’s star bowler Jasprit Bumrah played only two ODIs in the series against England and was ruled out before the main decider. This forced Gill to play a very inexperienced bowling attack featuring Gunur Brar and Prince Yadav. The skipper did not mince words in his post-match press conference, highlighting the consistent absence of the opener throughout the series.
“If you look at the first squad we announced, there are at least five players who are not playing in this game,” he said after Lord’s series defeat. “If one player is injured, you think about playing another combination. If two players are injured, you think about playing another combination. But if one player is out after every game, then we are missing a trick somewhere,” he added.Talking about the World Cup, where a team will play 11 consecutive matches if they go all the way, the Indian skipper stressed that the players would not be able to complete even a brief series.“If you take the World Cup as a target, we have to play 11 games in a row and here we have players who are not able to complete a two- or three-game series. So there are some constraints on our players not being able to play consecutive games. They only play one or two games and they get into trouble and then we are forced to play different combinations that we were not originally planning to play,” Gill said.
If you take the World Cup as a target, we have to play 11 games in a row and here we have players who can’t finish a two or three game series.
Shubman Gill
Little hiccups late on, sometimes even into the morning of the race, complicate matters further.“So, keeping all that in mind, it becomes a little difficult. You come to the field in the morning and a player has a niggle. Then it’s like, do you want to take a chance? A certain player’s fitness is at 80 per cent and you’re playing with five bowlers and if that player goes out after bowling five overs, then who is going to bowl? It’s difficult. So, as a team, we need to improve our fitness and all that,” Gill said.As of July 20, Pandya, Reddy, Chakravarthy and Rana are all in rehab in Bengaluru and Sundar is expected to join the quartet to start rehab. Except Reddy, the other four are Indian Champions Trophy winners. Apart from Rana, who was injured during warm-up, the other four are also part of the team that won the 2026 T20 World Cup. Even stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are recovering from their respective hamstring injuries. For India to go all the way in next year’s ODI World Cup, they need these five players to be at their best and will also have to ensure that the rest of the team spends more time on the field than off it.
