Nehra out of one-day squad

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI, SEPT. 22. Ashish Nehra, striving to recover from a groin injury, has been ruled out of the triangular one-day series in South Africa.

The reason advanced by Andrew Leipus, the physio attached to the Indian cricket team, is that the rehabilitation programme devised to aid the left-arm pace bowler's recovery will last two more weeks. His replacement will be announced by the selectors on Sunday. Ajit Agarkar, Debasis Mohanty and Rakesh Patel are in contention. ``Nehra did everything we asked for and more. He did not show any sign of pain,'' said Leipus after supervising the first of two-day fitness tests for the entire Indian team at the Wankhede stadium on Saturday.

``But the set of exercises given to him for recovery will take some more time. If he is pushed into a competitive situation at this stage, there is a risk of the injury recurring and affecting his career. The decision to rest him from the one- day series has been taken keeping a long-term view in mind,'' said the Indian physio.

Leipus gave a positive reply when asked about the state of fitness concerning Sachin Tendulkar and Javagal Srinath, two experienced players on the injury list. Zaheer Khan has been ruled out of the South Africa tour on fitness grounds. Tendulkar and Srinath were among the two subjected to a variety of tests to assess endurance, speed and mobility.

The batting maestro, recovering from an injury beneath his toe, did four repetitions of a three-run test (timed when taking three runs with a bat in hand). He did not show any discomfort, though his movements were laboured in a subsequent sprint test.

Tendulkar appeared stockier than usual, but the Indian physio emphasised that the Indian batting maestro had in fact lost a lot of body weight. ``Sachin will go through a different fitness programme now, devised to improve his cardio-vascular fitness through exercises like rowing, instead of making him run too many rounds of the ground,'' said Leipus, who seemed happy at the way Srinath responded.

The India pace bowler appeared to struggle in an exercise with cones planned to assess athleticism and flexibility but strode effortlessly over the turf in the sprint test.

Nehra was another fluent mover in the sprint test, showing no sign of the groin injury. Agarkar and Mohanty, both potential replacements for the slot vacated by Nehra, too raced to the finish, though the timings were not available. In contrast, skipper Sourav Ganguly's struggle to complete a distance of approximately 100 metres proves that he will be out of sorts in the outfield. However, the physio dismissed doubts about the skipper's fitness, attributing it to rustiness.

Reetinder Singh Sodhi excelled as expected in the endurance test where the players were put through a shuttle run.

The Indian physio has more tests in store for players who make the tour of South Africa. ``I will be taking them to the Institute of Sports Medicine in Johannesburg where exhaustive tests will be done on every player to determine, among other things, an imbalance of shoulder and knee joints, if any, and corrective exercises will be recommended,'' said Leipus, who spent a two-hour session in the middle.

Watching the probables for South Africa going through their paces was the selection committee, headed by Chandu Borde, which will now be the focus of attention on Sunday when decisions have to be taken regarding replacements. The Indian squad is supposed to leave for South Africa on Monday.

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