The role of the National Cricket Academy situated at the Chinaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru is unprecedented in shaping the future of Indian cricket. It was established in the year 2000 with Mr. Raj Singh Dungarpur as the president subsequently followed by Sunil Gavaskar for 5 years, Kapil Dev, Ravi Shastri, Anil Kumble along with the chairman. There has also been illustrious names as Roger Binny, Balwinder Singh Sandhu, Chandrakant Pandit, Venkatesh Prasad as coaches. There has been separate head coaches for batting, bowling, fielding as well as psychologists, physios, strength and conditioning as well for sports science and coaching theoretically.
Yesteryear, experienced players like Brijesh Patel, Sandeep Patil and even Dav Whatmore who had been head coaches of many countries like Sri lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, have been Directors of this academy. It was in the year 2000 that BCCI realised the need of this academy with a holistic scientific approach to the game as other countries like Australia, England had gone miles ahead. India did not had a dearth of talent anytime in producing international cricket players but it was the call of the situation that these players should be groomed to the latest scientific techniques and demeanor so that they could meet the upcoming situational challenges.
It have been observed that in the last decade and a half that is in the eighties and nineties particularly India had won only one major tournament: the World Cup in 1983 and other than this the performance has been very shaky and inconstant. It takes time to build up a strong and winning team particularly a champion team. If we follow the example of cricket, erstwhile Australia cricket board had built Australian cricket board years ago and has been churning out players to the international level consistently, some of the big names being Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting, Michael Slater, Michael Clarke and to the extent of new players like Usman Khwaja, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc etc. Australia has been instrumental in using the latest scientific techniques like bio mechanics which can extract the adequate power and consistency of a player, particularly in increasing the speed of a fast bowler or the bending of arm of a spinner to a specific angle to make the ball spin more effectively or the techniques for fielding are few of these. Such approach has been followed by the other countries like England and South Africa which have helped them to reap rich dividends.
BCCI had also started the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai in the late eighties with the legendary Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee as the consultant and head coach with T.A. Shekhar as the assistant coach which has indeed produced fast bowlers like Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad and Zaheer Khan. Now MRF Pace Foundation has linked with NCA to provide a holistic and scientific approach to batting, bowling and fielding. The NCA has now provided many players at the national and international level who are performing with elan like Hardik Pandya, Stuart Binny, Kedar Jadhav, Naman Ojha, K.L. Rahul etc.With the use of technology and scientific approach NCA are to churn out more players at the international level who will bring laurels for this country.
By : Niladri Sarkar
