National Cricket Academy

wicket-keeper

Saba Karim

Deep Dasgupta

NCA COO Tufan Ghosh gives bizarre reply when asked about the seriousness of Saha’s injuryThe men running thein Bangalore knew about Wriddhiman Saha’s shoulder niggle as early as January. But seven months down the line, those same men are struggling to explain how the niggle turned into a serious injury that has forced theout of India’s five-Test tour to England.On Thursday, Mirror contacted Tufan Ghosh, the NCA chief operating officer (COO), to get a sense of what might have gone wrong and about the reports that the NCA staff had messed up the rehabilitation process. Ghosh told us to send the questions, which were duly mailed to him a few minutes after the telephonic conversation.He told the paper that he would be able to answer them by Friday.The questions were pretty simple: Can you please throw some light on what was the original injury for which Saha reported for at the NCA? Hamstring, thumb or shoulder? In which month did Saha originally report to the NCA? Where exactly did he pick this shoulder injury? What was the diagnosis? For how long did Saha stay at the NCA? When did the NCA physios and trainers come to know that Saha has shoulder injury? When did the NCA inform the selectors that Saha won’t be available for the England tour? When did the NCA inform Saha that he will require a surgery?When contacted on Friday evening about the un-answered queries and if Saha’s rehabilitation process have been botched up, Ghosh gave a bizarre reply: “There has been no bungling. Why are you bothered? It’s not lifethreatening!”Ghosh is right. Saha’s shoulder injury isn’t life-threatening. But is it career-threatening? Ghosh and the BCCI, of which Saha is a contracted player, have no immediate answers. As things stand, Saha is sure to miss the five Tests. If he goes under the knife, the missed Tests number will increase. No one knows if he will be fit for the home season and the tour to Australia later this year. Here again, there is no clarity about the surgery. Saha is at the NCA and waiting for the BCCI to be give a plan about the road to recovery.For the record, in the last 18 years, Ajay Ratra (6),(1),(8), Sameer Dhighe (8), Vijay Dahiya (2) and Naman Ojha had Test careers of less than 10 Tests, the number of matches that sources want us believe Saha will eventually end up missing.In the last 48 hours since the news of the shoulder trouble broke, it has also become clear that the chief selector MSK Prasad was also in the dark. Because, post the selection he told a Kolkata-based newspaper that Saha hasn’t recovered from the thumb injury that he suffered during Qualifier 2 of this year’s IPL.Generally, the practice is that before the selection committee meeting, the BCCI secretary, who is the convener, apprises the selectors of the injury status of the players. But since Prasad had no idea about the shoulder injury, it’s pretty much clear that there was a major breakdown of communication between the NCA and the BCCI.All this confusion and BCCI’s reluctance to come up with some sort of definitive answers has left Saha’s wife Romi to do the answering. Speaking to Mirror yesterday, she threw some light on the whats, whys, wheres, and hows of the injury.According to her, Saha first came to know about the niggle when he reported to the NCA in January. “Saha had gone to the NCA after he came back from South Africa due to hamstring injury. It was during the check-up that he came to know about the shoulder trouble. He went through rehab and was cleared to play the IPL. He was given an injection on his right shoulder. During IPL he experienced trouble again and missed five games. He was treated by the physios with Hyderabad. He came back, injured his thumb and missed the final and the subsequent one-off Test against Afghanistan. Since then he has been under the NCA observation. It was prior to the selection for England tour when he was going through fitness drills that we came to know about his shoulder troubles.”As Saha waits, he can only hope that the injury that is not “life- threatening” is also not career-threatening.