India injury crisis: BCCI secretary to visit COE in Bengaluru amid fitness crisis in Indian

BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia will visit the Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru on Sunday. The visit comes amid a spate of injuries that has rocked the India cricket team.

Saikia is set to meet Head of Cricket VVS Laxman to review injury management. The mounting injury crisis in Indian cricket has prompted action from the very top, with BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia set to visit the Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru.

What Happened

The trip is aimed at taking stock of a situation that has left the national side badly depleted. Saikia will meet Head of Cricket VVS Laxman on Sunday to review the rehabilitation and injury-management programme at the facility.

• It leaves the Sports Science team stretched, particularly with the department lacking a permanent head since Nitin Patel's resignation in early 2025.

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• Saikia and Laxman fronting up with answers would be a start, but the real test is whether Sunday's meeting produces structural change rather than reassurance.

Key Details

The meeting comes as the CoE has increasingly resembled, in the words of some observers, a hospital ward rather than a high-performance centre. The visit is understood to serve a dual purpose, marking two years of the Centre of Excellence while also.

• A state-of-the-art facility is only as good as the people running it, and until the BCCI fills that vacuum and tightens its return-to-play protocols, episodes like this will keep recurring.

• The absence of a permanent sports-science head is the glaring gap.

• There is a case that injuries are simply part and parcel of sport, and no medical setup can eliminate them entirely.

Why It Matters

Whether head coach Gautam Gambhir, currently in Sri Lanka, and chief selector Ajit Agarkar join the meeting virtually remains unclear. Cricket journalist Kushan Sarkar, who reports for PTI, flagged the significance of the visit on X.

• Interim sports science head Dhananjay Kaushik is currently overseeing operations, but questions have emerged over the rehabilitation timelines and whether return-to-play protocols are being consistently applied across every case.

• The concerns extend to the white-ball group as well, with Hardik Pandya, Varun Chakravarthy and Prince Yadav all at the Bengaluru facility.

What Reports Say

Coverage of the story so far points to:

• Continued reporting by Yahoo Sports as more details emerge