Rohit Sharma Injury: India Practice Adelaide: India’s off-field hero Raghu Raghavendra had a troubled day in Adelaide on Tuesday. He hid in the dressing room in most of India’s practice session, avoiding India captain Rohit Sharma. The reason? Raghu had another victim of his throwdowns. One of his venomous short-pitch throws had struck Rohit on the forearm, almost ruling him out of the T20 WC Semifinals clash against England. Rohit was furious and gave him an earful in an agony of pain. Follow IND vs ENG LIVE & ICC T20 World Cup 2022 LIVE Updates on InsideSport.IN.
What exactly happened? Rohit Sharma along with Hardik Pandya and Dinesh Karthik were the only batters to turn up. But on the very second throwdown from Raghu, Rohit suffered a big injury scare.
Rohit Sharma Injury: Throwdown specialist Raghu HIDES in dressing room after SCOLDING from FURIOUS Rohit Sharma, Follow IND vs ENG LIVE
Raghu had mixed up his yorker delivery with a short-pitch one. After throwing a yorker-length, Raghu had released a short-pitch delivery that zipped and struck Rohit on the forearm. The throwdowns can still reach around 120KPH and are a menace on fast and bouncy pitches.
Rohit was down in pain and immediately went off the nets. Batting coach Vikram Rathour and bowling coach Paras Mhambrey rushed in. Soon, team physio Kamlesh Jain and team doctor to rushed in to attend India captain. They applied ice packs to his injured area as Rohit sat down for around 40 minutes.
Why did Rohit Sharma scold Raghu? Rohit scolded Raghu for mixing up deliveries. While pacers will definitely mix up their deliveries in matches, the practice sessions are mostly to get accustomed to a different set of deliveries.
But Raghu made that error as Rohit specifically asked for back-of-the-length delivery. The India captain was not ready for a short-pitch throwdown and injured his arm. The immediate scare was that Rohit could miss the most-important semifinal clash against England.
Rohit Sharma Injury: Throwdown specialist Raghu HIDES in dressing room after SCOLDING from FURIOUS Rohit Sharma, Follow IND vs ENG LIVE
Rohit Sharma has had a net now & he’s smiling again and also most importantly Raghu is not looking distraught. Looks like he’s alright and good to go #T20WorldCup pic.twitter.com/iJN2DiJ1lu
— Bharat Sundaresan (@beastieboy07) November 8, 2022
Raghu’s past record of injuring players and ruling them out crucial games and even series also make him a fearsome candidate at the nets. It was Raghu’s delivery that ruled Mayank Agarwal out of a Test match in England. Mayank ended up having a concussion. Suryakumar Yadav suffered a 2-month injury layoff after Raghu’s delivery stuck him on the wrist. Virat Kohli, KL Rahul among others have also fallen victim to his throwdowns.
What happened next? When Rohit felt better and walked into to bat again, Raghu was nowhere to be found. He understood that he had injured the Indian captain and Rohit would miss the England match.
And now Rohit Sharma has left the net without facing another ball and it doesn’t look very good unfortunately #T20WorldCup pic.twitter.com/9wXbqA8qJw
— Bharat Sundaresan (@beastieboy07) November 8, 2022
Rohit Sharma Injury: Throwdown specialist Raghu HIDES in dressing room after SCOLDING from FURIOUS Rohit Sharma, Follow IND vs ENG LIVE
As Dayanand Garani started giving Rohit throwdowns, India captain asked, “Where is Raghu?”
Paras Mhambrey responded saying, “He went inside after getting “bamboo” from Rohit.”
Rohit Sharma asked Raghu to be called back in the nets. Raghu walked back amid loud cheer from the players and support staff. Dinesh Karthik then explained to him what he did wrong.
With every throw, Raghu sounded apologetic as he tried to go slow. But Rohit asked him to bowl shorter, “Aur upar daal” as per an Indian Express report. Later, Mhambrey told Raghu, “Tu barabar ab aage daal sakta hai. Ab kaise aage daala, ab short nahi dalega na.” Everyone laughed out loud.
Who is Raghu Raghavendra?
An aspiring cricketer from Karnataka in the 1990s, Raghu set sail for Mumbai. He quit studies wanting to play cricket full-time. However, injuries prevented his rise. A disappointed Raghu came back to Bengaluru where he started helping coaches.
One of the opportunities he got was at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru. He started giving throwdowns to the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and later MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli. Soon, he became their favourite. To this day, he remains one of world’s best throwdown specialists.
Rohit Sharma Injury: Throwdown specialist Raghu HIDES in dressing room after SCOLDING from FURIOUS Rohit Sharma, Follow IND vs ENG LIVE
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