India batter Tilak Varma has undergone emergency surgery in Rajkot and is likely to miss the upcoming five T20Is against New Zealand, sources familiar with the matter told IANS on Thursday. Varma, 23, experienced acute pain in the abdomen after breakfast on Wednesday morning in Rajkot, a day before Hyderabad were to play their final Vijay Hazare Trophy league-stage game against Jammu and Kashmir at the Niranjan Shah Stadium Ground C.
Varma was subsequently taken to the hospital, where scans showed he required an emergency operation. In consultation with the medical team at the BCCI Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru, Varma was successfully operated on and is believed to be doing well now.
“It was a very emergency situation for Tilak to be operated upon, considering the immense pain he was in. Thankfully, the surgery went well on Wednesday evening at a super-speciality hospital in Rajkot. If all goes well, he could well be discharged tomorrow.
It will be known in next 1-2 days about his status of playing next month’s T20 World Cup,” sources said. A top sports medicine specialist told IANS, on condition of anonymity, that it takes a maximum of one month for athletes to recover from this kind of emergency surgery.
“The recovery duration also depends on how extensive the tissue damage was. Only pain is a factor in these emergency scenarios as the operation is done on a highly innervated structure, where it twists on itself and cuts blood supply,” further said the specialist.
The injury raises concerns about Varma's availability for the T20 World Cup, which begins on February 7. India are scheduled to open their campaign against the United States of America (USA) on the same day at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Varma has been a key figure in India's T20I setup, amassing 1,183 runs in 37 innings at an average of 49.29 and a strike rate of 144.09. He has scored two centuries and six half-centuries in the format. His absence could see India captain Suryakumar Yadav bat at number three.
The BCCI has yet to name a replacement for Varma in the five-match series against New Zealand, which begins on January 21 in Nagpur. It is understood that Varma’s absence could open the door for someone like Shreyas Iyer to play in the T20Is against New Zealand.