‘Why should there be the same program for R Ashwin and Virat Kohli?’: Virender Sehwag questions Indian players recurring injuries

Former India opener Virender Sehwag made a scathing attack on present-day cricketers, who are obsessed with lifting weights in the gym. Sehwag said one of the reasons of Indian players suffers recurring injuries are the heavy lifting they do in the gym.
Sehwag slammed Team India’s performance coach Basu Shanker for making the same programs for all Indian players. Sehwag recalled one of his interactions with R Ashwin, when he was the team mentor of Punjab Kings.
“Basu Shanker was with the Indian team for a lot of years, and he made the same programs for all players. Why should there be the same program for Ravichandran Ashwin and Virat Kohli? When Ashwin was with the Kings XI Punjab, he told me he was doing clean-and-jerk workouts because it was in trend,” Sehwag said on TRS Clips.
“Athletes train from childhood for clean and jerk and still get injured. Imagine a cricketer starting when he’s over 30 years old. Both Ashwin and Axar had problems with their knees because of this workout,” he added.
Sehwag said fitness is important but not everyone is Virat Kohli.
“We didn’t do any weight training in our days, but we were still able to play cricket all day. This could be Virat Kohli’s funda. But not everyone is Virat Kohli. You need to prepare a training program based on your own body,” he said.
Sehwag also said the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh hardly suffered such setbacks in their playing days.

“There is no place for weightlifting in cricket. Instead, you should do the exercises that improve your game. Weightlifting will give you strength, but will also increase stiffness and soreness,”Sehwag said.
“In our days, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, MS Dhoni, or Yuvraj Singh, nobody were ruled out due to back, hamstring, or quadricep injuries.”