Greek Adonises on crutches

"Get off the gym and bowl" – that’s the message former Australian players have for the country’s fast bowlers, who’ve probably given the team physio sleepless nights in India. Steve Rixon, Geoff Lawson and Doug Walters told the Courier Mail that it’s time for Australia to stop hiding behind the excuse of excessive cricket, which many like to believe is the reason behind four fast bowlers getting early return tickets home.

"Some of the best specimens running around in cricket have the bodies of a Greek Adonis, but we can't get them on the park to bowl,” says Rixon, who feels bowlers are spending too much time pumping iron instead of running in at the nets. Walters agreed with Rixon that the training methods need to be reworked. Lawson, also a former Pakistan coach, rubbished suggestions of workload saying, "Brett Lee has hardly played any cricket for two years, so you wouldn't think that was from overuse. When I was coach of Pakistan we looked at every injury systematically and how our fitness people were dealing with it."