NEW DELHI: Yuvraj Singh will miss India's entire tour of South Africa but is not ruled out of the World Cup, the Cricket Board said on Monday.
Since the next assessment is slated only after eight weeks, it renders the 24-year-old left-hander unavailable for the South Africa tour which commences tomorrow and comprises five ODIs and three-Test series.
After the eight-week period, a thorough appraisal of the overall stability of the knee would be undertaken and depending on the findings, a decision on whether to pursue conservative management or opt for surgical intervention would be taken, the BCCI said.
"We would anticipate that at this point Yuvraj will have returned to running activities and as a result the best indications of the overall stability of the knee can be revealed," it said.
The statement said that there had been many cases of players playing at the highest levels of all sports with ACL deficient knees and they feel that because of the time frames involved with the World Cup in March/April 2007, they would like to pursue this approach initially.
Yuvraj's availability for World Cup had been questioned by former India physio Andrew Leipus who said ACL injuries take a lot of time to heal and are difficult to treat without surgery.
"It will be touch and go for the World Cup for Yuvraj because of the length of time it takes to recover from such an injury. My understanding is he will have to undergo surgery as the torn ligament needs to be reconstructed," Leipus said.
Leipus' statement could ring true because it took almost a year for England paceman Simon Jones to recover from a similar injury.
Yuvraj, a key one-day player and crucial to India's World Cup plans, has amassed 4286 runs from 159 matches at an average of 34.84 and a strike rate of 85.78.
