Brijesh Patel recovering in ICU

Board of Control for Cricket in India selection committee chairman Brijesh Patel is stable and recovering at the ICU of Narayana Hrudayala in Bangalore. The cardiologists who operated on him say they hope to shift the former India batsman out of the ICU on Friday.

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Patel underwent bypass surgery at the Narayana Hrudayala hospital, which is one of Bangalore's best heart care centres, on Monday morning. He had a normal open heart bypass surgery. Last Friday, he had an angiogram. Based on the results of the angiogram, doctors decided that it was best to operate at the earliest.

The cricket fraternity has been visiting the hospital and calling the doctors for information. However, Patel has been allowed no visitors so far, barring immediate family. He will be allowed no visitors for the rest of this week.

It will probably be early or mid next week, at the earliest, before Patel is released. The doctors anticipate that it will take him a while to be back in action after that.

Incidentally, Hrudayalaya is the hospital in Bangalore that is known to draw a lot of child patients from Pakistan. Noor Fathima, a toddler from Pakistan, travelled all the way from Lahore to India on the first bus recently just to undergo heart surgery here. The chief of this hospital is popular cardiac surgeron Dr Devi Shetty.

Rediff.com has actually enabled the parents of children in Pakistan to contact the hospital.

This sudden medical condition of Patel, on the eve of India's engagement with New Zealand, has thrown the selectors into some confusion. Will he be well enough to perform his duties as chief selector over the next couple of months?