Taskin Ahmed may not be able to play Test cricket again
Image courtesy of: Zimbio
Bangladesh pace bowler Taskin Ahmed may not be able to play Test cricket in the future due to a disc-related problem in his back, which has been getting progressively worse.
Taskin has been troubled by the back issue for the past four months and while managed to keep it under control earlier, it has started to become an increasingly serious problem. As a result, he started taking medication on April 12 and has been undergoing a rehabilitation program.
With Taskin’s back problem having flared up again, he will not be taking part in the Bangladesh Cricket Board’s (BCB) High Performance strength and conditioning camp for pace bowlers in Cox’s Bazaar, which started on Thursday.
To make matters worse for Bangladesh, he has now been listed as doubtful for the national team’s two-Test series against the West Indies in the Caribbean in July.
“I am having such a pain that I cannot get down from the bed. Please pray for my early recovery,” Taskin wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday.
Explaining the medical problem the 23-year-old is experiencing, BCB chief physician Debashish Chowdhury was quoted by Cricbuzz as saying: “It’s a disc-related injury. The biggest problem is that you cannot guess anything, so we cannot say what will happen tomorrow despite watching him doing well today.
“In his case, he is doing well for a couple of days and suddenly the pain increases substantially at home. The disc related problem is such and so it is difficult to make long-term plans with cricketers sustaining this kind of injury.”
Given that the traditional methods aren’t bearing the results the medical staff had hoped, Chowdhury confirmed that some alternative options are being considered.
“According to MRI, his back problem has not reached that stage where it would require surgery but he is not responding too well in the conservative management – a rehabilitation program designed with physiotherapy,” he said. “We need to do something in-between and so we are thinking of giving him an injection on his backbone in one or two days. It might relieve the pain temporarily but you cannot say that it will have a long term effect.”
Chowdhury added that in the near future, Taskin should only be considered for limited overs cricket.
“He can play with this temporary arrangement but even if he returns, we need to consider him only for ODIs and T20Is,” he said. “He cannot take part in longer-version cricket immediately as there is a possibility that it can increase the pain to substantial extent.”