Injury-prone Varun goes to Murali's spin doctor

From being Sri Lanka's bowling consultant for two years to setting up the MRF Pace Academy in Madras in the 1980s, Australian Daryl Foster has many claims to fame in his coaching career. But he's most famous for transforming Muttiah Muralitharan into a human chandelier at the University of Western Australia as part of testing the controversial off-spinner's bowling action.

The biomechanics expert, meanwhile, is also acknowledged with analysing the actions of pacers Shoaib Akhtar and Ruchira Perera among others in the early 2000s.

Come next week, the 74-year-old Foster is all set for a new challenge, when young Indian pacer Varun Aaron visits him in his hometown of Perth to get his action checked for a whole different purpose. The 23-year-old Jharkhand pacer, who last played for India in December before returning for a brief spell for the Delhi Daredevils in the IPL, suffered two stress fractures to his back in his teens and his career has been affected ever since with persistent relapses.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have decided to send Aaron to Australia, under the recommendation of the National Cricket Academy's (NCA) chief physiotherapist Nitin Patel, where he will undergo a series of biomechanical tests.

"The BCCI has decided to send Varun Aaron to Australia to hopefully discover the reason for his recurring back problems. To see if tweaking his action can help him or whether it is a more serious problem and needs a drastic change. Nitin Patel has been monitoring his progress at the NCA and was of the opinion that he be looked at by Foster," BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale told The Indian Express .

"I feel 100 per cent fit, but I don't want to go back to playing cricket without being sure of what is going wrong with my action or my body that results in the constant breakdowns. I'm not afraid of being injured again but I want to go full throttle once I'm back and not be in two minds. I hope the Australia trip helps," said Aaron.

... contd.

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