Injury scare for Yuvraj Singh after India's barefoot football session

Barefooted football: Not a very wise decision?

Playing football is a usual part of Indian cricketers’ training regime, however, a barefooted football session led to Yuvraj Singh limping off the ground at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Tuesday, PTI reported.

It was for the first time that the Indian cricket team was having a full training session without their shoes.

Yuvraj Singh was sighted limping at the end of the training session towards the team bus, although it is still unknown whether it was a serious injury or not.

When team trainer Nitin Patel was queried about the status of Yuvraj’s injury, his reply came, “Why are you asking me? You know I am not supposed to answer any questions.”

According to DNA India, Singh had twisted his left ankle, and was on the ground for a couple of minutes after slipping on the turf.

“Trainer Sudarshan VP wanted the boys to play barefoot. There’s no reason that I can give you,” revealed team media manager R.N. Baba when asked about their sudden change of training methods.

Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, however, had a quirky response when asked about the reason for playing barefooted. Dhoni said, “Kya kare yaar, paise khatam ho gaye (What can we do, we’re broke!)”.

Bangladesh Cricket Board’s (BCB) chief medical officer Debashis Chowdhury is one of those who were in favour of this new training regime.

“Playing or running barefoot on uneven terrain activates the foot bones and they become functional, something that they don’t when you run with your shoes on because then the muscles become dormant,” Chowdhury told reporters. “For example, it’s good to use soft surfaces like sand or grass to exercise those intrinsic muscles. Secondly, this exercise gives one a sense of balance.”

BCCI’s interim president Sunil Gavaskar is known to be a vocal critic of having non-cricketing training prior to matches. Yuvraj Singh has a bad experience in this regard too, when he injured his knee ahead of a knock-out match in 2006 ICC Champions Trophy in Mohali.

Even Rohit Sharma’s debut was pushed forward by more than 3 years when he injured his ankle while playing football ahead of the start of the 1st Test against South Africa in Nagpur in 2010.