New Delhi, May 26 (PTI): Former Test seamer Javagal Srinath has sought to dispel the notion that fast bowlers get injured because of the excess load on them.

The 37-year-old, now an ICC Match Referee, said that actually the opposite was true.

"My theory is if you bowl less you get injured," said Srinath, who played in 67 Tests and claimed 236 wickets.

"If you bowl more and more, your muscles get strengthened. If you take the case of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and myself, we never had any problem.

"There is the odd exception but in general, about 60 per cent of the injuries bowlers suffer are due to bowling less or bowling lots of overs intermittently.

"Your body has to be tuned to bowl 35 overs in a match. You cannot do that all of a sudden."

Srinath's advice to the young crop is to play lot of first-class matches and bowl a lot.

"One should bowl 1000 overs in a year, and I am talking about first-class cricket. There is an inherent training in fast bowling.

"You look at Zaheer Khan. He is well tuned now after playing in the English county. I don't think he will be ever injured again.

"Yes, there will be the odd injury, but you can't avoid those."

T A Sekhar, another former Test bowler and now head coach at the MRF Pace Foundation, stressed on the need for "a collective brain" to deal with injuries.

"You look at the way Andrew Symonds got fit in time after a surgery to play in the World Cup," he said.

"As a fast bowler, you must be prepared to get injured because the human body is not suited for fast bowling. There is a trade off there."

Both Srinath and Sekhar believed that the 'rotation policy' was the best way to prevent frequent injuries.

"When you are playing Australia or South Africa, you need experience. Against Zimbabwe or Bangladesh, you should get guys who are knocking on the doors," Sekhar said.

Srinath gave two thumbs up for the Indian team's decision to play five bowlers in the ongoing Test against Bangladesh.

Srinath said the move was significant because it marked a departure from the practice of bolstering batting at the expense of bowling fire power.

"That is the best thing, to play three pacers and two spinners. In my days, the biggest problem was that four bowlers were invariably over burdened because the captain wanted to have the luxury of an extra batsman," he said.

"It could also boil down to the difference between a bowling captain and a batting captain.

"A bowling captain would think how to get the opposition out while a batting captain would be concerned about putting up runs on the board," said the ex-Karnataka bowler, in the city on a promotional visit.

"Sometimes you tend to under-bowl the fifth bowler but that is better than being over-burdened."