New Delhi: Currently recovering from a shoulder injury that forced him to skip the West Indies tour, Sachin Tendulkar will regain his full fitness before the tri-series in Sri Lanka, former Team India physiotherapist Andrew Leipus said.
In an interview to Zee Sports, Leipus, who has been working with the batting maestro said, "He actually recovered very, very well considering what he had done to the shoulder. It's hard to give an exact date but I think he'll be ready for the Sri Lankan series."
India, South Africa and hosts Sri Lanka will play a tri-series in August.
"The current status is that he has a few more weeks to go before he is 100 per cent fit and when we say hundred per cent we are talking about batting, fielding, throwing," Leipus said.
On the injury, he said, "We are not too sure how the injury started. We think there was a bit of wear and tear as well as an acute injury. I wasn't around, John Gloster was seeing him at the time. The surgery went fine, structurally everything was a success. We literally just ran out of time to get him fit for the West Indies."
"He was batting in the nets, he was feeling good but the strength in the shoulder just wasn't quite there," he added.
Asked why Tendulkar skipped the Mumbai fitness test before the Indian team was to be announced for the Test series against the West Indies, Leipus said, "The whole process of the fitness test is to establish the person's readiness to play and whether he can absorb the stress of international sport."
"I had observed him for about a week and a half and knew what he couldn't tolerate both on the park and in the gym. It would have been a pointless exercise to go through a fitness test."
He also said that the claims that playing with heavy bat was the sole reason behind Tendulkar developing a tennis elbow was wrong.
"I think there are a lot of misconceptions about what goes wrong with a sportsman. I think we have a lot of media attention given to this player. But we must not forget that this person is a human being. So if we put all the factors together, his age, the amount of cricket he has played and the amount of cricket that is played these days, there is bound to be some wear and tear."
"That was a nightmare for Sachin and me obviously. The injury started purely because of him playing too much cricket in a short period of time. He practices very intensely, so he was batting in the nets for an hour, hour and a half before we left for a series to be played in Holland. That's when he felt some stiffness."
"His muscles were quite fatigued and overworked and he did not allow them enough recovery. Then during practice in Holland one particular delivery just put him across that threshold. So that's when it started and nothing really helped it after that," he added.
On a lighter vein, Leipus identified Vinod Kambli and Harbhajan Singh as the pranksters in the dressing room.
"I think that the biggest joker was Vinod Kambli. During the time he was with the team he was certainly up there and then Harbhajan Singh. Bhajji, I've been at the receiving end of a couple of his jokes over the years."
"I remember this one time he mimicked the managers voice, he called my room and said Andrew tomorrow morning we have a photo shoot. So I had to wear my best suit and tie, you know the travel kit and when I came down to the bus in the morning everyone was dressed up in track suits and shorts and I'm in the full gear," he reminisced.
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