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Wednesday, Jul 02, 2008
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Is the fitness programme faulty?

Quality pacers shouldn’t be subjected to meaningless exercises, writes Makarand Waingankar

Do the pace bowlers in India have frail bodies which can’t take the load of matches or is their fitness programme faulty? Old-timers feel workouts in the gymnasium have had adverse effect on the pacers.

Their logic is that during their days there were no gymnasiums, but they forget that then there were no international quality pace bowlers in India either.

The cricket structure has changed drastically and with the advent of Twenty20, no player can be hidden in the field. With the international cricket calendar packed, there is hardly any time for the pace bowlers to recover.

In domestic cricket, they are required to run on hard grounds and bowl on docile pitches. This certainly affects their fitness level.

Not many old-timers are willing to consider that the present generation began playing at the age of 10, unlike the cricketers from the 60s to 80s who were getting into inter-state competitions around the age of 15.

Mistakes by parents

Not knowing the consequences of playing too much cricket at the age of 10, the parents exacerbate the mistake by pushing children to get stronger either through drugs or doing weight-training.

The BCCI seems to have studied the problems and has scrapped the under-15 category, replacing it with the under-16 category and an inter-school tournament to be held by each association.

The domestic tournaments require a re-think if we want to keep quality pace bowlers from fatigue. Doing away with the Duleep Trophy could be the solution. From 2002, the format of the Duleep Trophy has been changed repeatedly to make it more interesting, but results have been negligible.

Chance for hopefuls

The tournament gives a few more opportunities to hopefuls to perform as the Indian selection process still relies on performances.

There was a move to play the Duleep Trophy in the beginning of the season, but that wasn’t possible because the basis of selection is performance in the Ranji Trophy.

A zonal team can only be picked on the basis of performances for the state. Also, the quota system in the zonal selection hasn’t changed. Sunil Gavaskar and Ashok Mankad, though the opening pair for the country, were dropped by the zonal selectors against the South Zone in 1974. Nothing seems to have changed.

Less load

If the Duleep Trophy is replaced with the Twenty20 inter-State tournament which didn’t have a slot last season, there will be less load on the pace bowlers.

Not many are aware that the majority of the young pace bowlers are employed with the Public Sector Units (PSU) which not only demand participation in the tournaments that they play but also promote players directly based on their performances.

In fact, when one of the India medium pace bowlers ignored the requirement of the PSU where he was employed, he was asked to resign.

BCCI must ensure quality pace bowlers are not subjected to meaningless exercise in playing tournaments which are of little consequence.

International matches are won by pace bowlers. We need to nurture them so that they can be effective when the team needs them.

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