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By Peter Della Penna

USA batsman Aditya Thyagarajan is struggling to rehabilitate a knee injury suffered in January against Denmark at the ICC World Cricket League Division Three tournament in Hong Kong. His slow recovery process means he is now a longshot to make USA’s roster for the ICC Americas Division One Twenty20, due to be held from July 17-24.

“I’ve done rehab in Santa Barbara. I meet a physical therapist once a week and then I meet a doctor once a month. I would say the progress is average,” said Thyagarajan on Monday. “Right now, my walking and all the daily activities which do not revolve around any sports, they have come back to normal. The biggest hindrance I see, and I might be a month late, is I’m still not able to jog or run so that’s I think where it has become slow. Initially, my prognosis was that there is no ACL and MCL tear and I should be completely fine, but there’s a lot of weakness in the joints which I completely underestimated and that has caused the recovery to be pretty slow.”

One doctor had placed him with a two to three month recovery time before playing again, but three and a half months since the injury, the 32-year-old Thyagarajan is still a long way from playing club cricket, let alone suiting up for the national team.

“The first doctor who saw me in Hong Kong said it would take six months to come back on the field,” said Thyagarajan. Less than 24 hours after the injury occurred in Hong Kong, he was on a plane to India to see a specialist who gave him a more optimistic outlook. “Then after I drained my knee in India and there was no ACL and MCL tear, I was actually hoping to be back in like 45 days, which now I think was completely absurd. If I go back now, I think the six month period seems right and I think my real focus and target right now is give it the best shot and try to be able to play the Americas Cup at the end of July.”

However, Thyagarajan has given himself a self-imposed deadline to play in a 45-over match for Hollywood CC in the SCCA Division One by the end of June before he will even consider putting himself up for selection consideration for the national team.

Image (right) - File photo of Aditya Thyagarajan [Courtesy ICC].

“I want to be able to tell USACA by the end of June if I can play or not,” said Thyagarajan. “I don’t want to leave them hanging until the last week. So I’ve given myself basically six weeks from now. I want to play my first Hollywood game by the end of June. That’s really the target I have right now. How confident I am that I’ll be able to meet it? Not very, but that is definitely my target is to lose weight, get fit and try to play the Hollywood game by the end of June.”

“If I can’t play for Hollywood by the end of June, then I really don’t see how I can play for USA by the third week of July,” said Thyagarajan. “The biggest hurdle concern I have is I’m not able to jog or run. I’ve not even started thinking about how I will dive and how I would jump and take a catch and things like that because right now I’m just thinking why am I not able to run and how do I run. So I’m at that scenario, that situation right now. I haven’t really thought too far ahead. That’s my single most prominent concern. I really need to jog and run and then that’s when I’ll know I think when I’ll be able to come back on the field. Now I have end of June date, a target to come back, but it’s definitely very optimistic because I need to run first to be able to really start playing the game again.”

If he doesn’t make it back in time for the ICC Americas event, Thyagarajan feels there is enough talent across the country to step up and perform in his absence.

“I really feel that I don’t want to take any shortcuts and if I’m not completely okay, I think there are enough players who will do a much better job than me if they are completely fit,” said Thyagarajan. “I don’t think that by playing 80% or 75% fit, I’ll be able to contribute more than any other player. I can wait if I’m not fit. I’ll wait for the next tournament which will be sometime next year. I’m really anxious and looking forward to play. At the same time I’m not desperate that I’ll say I’m fit and go out there and take some person’s chance who will be able to do better than me. That’s not good for me and it’s not good for the team.”

Thyagarajan says he is “95% sure” he will not be fit in time to participate in the USACA Twenty20 National Championship, scheduled for June 17-20 in Dallas. USA’s top scorer in 2010 admits that he has struggled with his approach to rehab, mainly because he has never had a serious injury before in his career and so doesn’t have any previous experiences to use as a point of reference. Instead of taking an aggressive approach, he has remained cautious, not wanting to aggravate his condition.

“My first three months, I definitely didn’t work as hard as I should have in the gym,” said Thyagarajan. “So what I do is I do the other exercises which are elliptical and the bike so last two weeks, I’ve actually tried to walk fast like brisk walking and I tried to jog on the treadmill so next two to four weeks are really important. That’s where the physiotherapist is going to focus on me trying to run again.”

In addition to the physical battle of getting back into shape, Thyagarajan is also attempting to overcome mental hurdles as well.

“I’m not scared about it that a dislocation could happen… well, I need to take a step back,” said Thyagarajan. “Until today, me nor anybody knows why it happened in the first place. When I was batting in the nets for the first time over the weekend on Saturday, I was just again and again replaying the same shot which is a simple cover drive, my bread and butter shot which got me so many runs against opposition. I still don’t know how it happened.”

“So I’m not scared of a recurrence that it will happen again but it’s definitely going to be on the back of the mind that while playing a really simple shot this happened. If it happened while I was running behind the ball and there was a pothole on the ground then I slipped or I twisted, that I can understand but all of us have seen the video multiple times and it’s really difficult to figure out why it happened. Even today when I play that shot, I just think it’s a normal shot. How can it completely twist and move your knee from your knee location to your calf?”

Despite these worries, Thyagarajan feels capable of returning to 100% fitness and back to his match-winning ways.

“I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to make a complete comeback,” said Thyagarajan. “What I think all of us are apprehensive about for an injury like this is it could happen again with an impact, the ball hitting the knee, or me having a similar twist like I had in Hong Kong. There are those two scenarios where there is a higher chance of it happening but luckily cricket is not really a contact sport like rugby or soccer or anything else. The chance of recurrence is definitely lower than some other sports. I’m confident I’ll be able to come back to normal what I was before but at the same time me and everybody who I’m gonna be playing with will know that a recurrence of patellar dislocation is a side effect of the injury and I’ll be living with that as long as I continue playing.”

USA’s “Ice Man” has taken some inspiration from another USA player who suffered a devastating injury but managed to come back arguably better than ever. Thyagarajan’s roommate on the road with USA, Sushil Nadkarni, ruptured an Achilles tendon in August of 2009. It could have ended Nadkarni’s career, but instead the vice-captain returned in just over six months to help USA advance through WCL Division Five in Nepal before taking Player of the Tournament honors at WCL Division Four in Italy.

“We’ve already spoken a few times. He came back really strong and really well and was instrumental in moving USA from Division Five to Three,” said Thyagarajan. “I feel really confident that the way he came back, I feel even I should be able to come back and even I might have a couple years to be able to contribute. Definitely I’m optimistic and it’s an inspiration to see how he came back.”

Regardless of when he comes back, Thyagarajan is grateful for all the support he’s received throughout his injury experience and is eager to show everyone what he can do upon his return.