"Lucknow must be sweating" - Aakash Chopra expresses concern on KL Rahul and Washington Sundar's fitness issues

Aakash Chopra has expressed concern about the recurring fitness issues of star batter KL Rahul and all-rounder Washington Sundar. He believes Rahul's new IPL franchise, the Lucknow Super Giants, will be sweating over his fitness, while also lamenting not being able to see Sundar in action for most of the last eight months,

India have announced their Test and T20I squads for the upcoming series against Sri Lanka. Rahul and Sundar missed out on both squads due to hamstring injuries. Rahul had a massive workload in 2021 and this will be his second series miss after he was unable to fully participate in the recent white-ball rubber against West Indies.

Sundar, meanwhile, is going through an extended patch of bad luck. He missed out on the second half of IPL 2021 due to a fractured finger. He then tested positive for COVID-19 and was ruled out of the ODI series against South Africa last year. Now, after playing three ODIs against West Indies, he will be out of action again.

Speaking in a video on his YouTube channel, Aakash Chopra said:

"KL Rahul and Washington Sundar have been ruled out for the entire Sri Lankan tour. The questions do come up. There is an issue with KL Rahul's fitness and Lucknow must be sweating. For Washington Sundar, it's been so long and an off-spinner getting injured so often? He had Covid then got injured, then again injured - we haven't seen him play in the last eight months. He got injured before the T20 World Cup and since we have hardly seen him play - just a couple of matches here and there. Now he's disappeared from the seen again and has picked up a long-term injury."

Aakash Chopra also contrasted the duo's injury misses with the new all-format skipper Rohit Sharma. The former opener feels Sharma, who's had his own share of fitness issues, will now not get any rest and will be under the pump until the 2022 T20 World Cup. Aakash Chopra said:

"Rohit Sharma isn't going to get any rest now. He's the new captain of the new era. He's playing ODIs, T20Is, then Tests, then the entire IPL, then he'll be expected to play throughout the tour of England. Rohit Sharma is going to be under the pump quite a bit because neither he'll take rest here nor for Mumbai Indians."

Rohit is now all set to become India's 35th Test captain. With his promotion to the helm for the Sri Lanka series, India have officially completed the transition from Virat Kohli to him in all three formats.

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Playing for India not pre-eminent anymore: Aakash Chopra

Aakash Chopra also shed light on the bigger picture connected to players like Virat Kohli, Shardul Thakur and Rishabh Pant getting some long-due rest in this series.

He observed that the same players, among others, won't take any such rest while playing in the IPL, asserting that playing in the cash-rich has somewhat taken over representing India in importance. Aakash Chopra explained:

"Think about it. When you are playing for India, there's an overwhelming concept of workload management, of not playing all players together, rotation and bubble fatigue and all of that. We never hear that in the IPL, that a player has been rested due to bubble fatigue and stress. Inadvertently, the eminence of club cricket has skyrocketed slightly uncontrollably."

He added:

"The franchise, which signs cricketers in huge amounts, say 'Do whatever you can. Evem don't play for India but I have paid you 15 crore, play all matches for me. I won't give you any rest unless you are injured. You take all the rest you need while playing for India... We always said playing for India will be pre-eminent but it's not like that anymore. You are seeing rotation there but you won't see any changes once the IPL start - Shardul Thakur, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant won't miss a single match."

IPL 2022 is slated to begin in the last week of March. The Sri Lanka series, meanwhile, will kick off on February 24 with the first of the three T20Is.