“In three years since I took up the assignment, I have never spoken about my role and what we do here,” jokes VVS Laxman after a 45-minute interaction on the BCCI’s newly inaugurated Centre of Excellence on the outskirts of Bengaluru.
In an interview, the legendary cricketer – now Head of Cricket at the National Cricket Academy – spelt out everything in his new avatar and also shared his and the BCCI’s vision for the Centre of Excellence (CoE).
On the perception about the NCA – now rechristened as the Centre of Excellence
There is a misconception that the cricketers come only for rehab. But they come to the NCA to also upskill, get ready for the challenges in the various series they’re going to participate in. I’m sure that all the players who come to this facility and are part of these programmes will strive to achieve excellence. And in the process, the Indian cricket team in all the formats will be probably the best in the world.
On the target for the completion of the project
The target for completion was 15 months. I was a bit sceptical, but the way work has progressed, right from the time construction began, has been remarkable. I have been to some of the best academies in the world, not only limited to cricket, but other sports also. But I have not seen this kind of a facility.
A lowdown of the facilities at the Centre of Excellence
It’s a dream come true for all the players. For someone like me who has played for the country at the highest level, I think it is a very important moment. This kind of infrastructure with three world-class grounds, with three different soils — red soil, the local soil from Karnataka and the soil from Odisha — and then the practice wickets, which again have got three different soils there — close to 45 practice wickets, including five cement tracks. And then we have got the indoor facility with close to 10 lanes. Apart from that, we’ve got a world-class Sports Science & Medicine (SSM) building.
Sports science has become an integral part, not only in Indian cricket, but also in sports. And it is not only about players getting injured and recovering on time, but it is also about maintaining the highest level of fitness standards and also recovery, which is very, very important with the busy schedule the Indian cricketers have. So, a lot of importance has been given to the recovery part.
Apart from that, coach education — because, as you all know, NCA focusses a lot on developing not only cricketers, but also coaches. And we have got programmes from level 0 to level 1, level 2, level 3, and hopefully next year we will try, I mean that is an ambitious project of ours, where we want to introduce level 4. Apart from that, we will even have bench strength for performance analysts, bench strength for physiotherapists, bench strength for SNC, strength and conditioning coach.
The coach education department also is remarkable, so the infrastructure is world-class and I just hope that everyone who comes here will benefit from this initiative of the BCCI. I would like to thank the BCCI for giving so much of importance to this infrastructure and I am sure a lot of cricketers and a lot of other professionals involved in the game will benefit from this infrastructure.
With the upscaling, if you have to point out three things at CoE, what will they be?
The programmes we run, because the way the programmes run, all the best performers, right from your under-15 for women and under-16 for boys, are selected by the national selectors and from April, during the off-season, until September, we have various programmes.
We conducted close to 32 camps during this period for both boys and girls, but usually these happen in different parts of the country. And with the KSCA, we get the ground to have some of these camps. Whereas here with three grounds, I think we can have a lot more programmes. Also, these grounds can be used to have some India ‘A’ series, which can be played on these surfaces here.
The most important thing is: there are three different kinds of soils. What we want is the players to know how to adapt to different conditions. So, in one place, instead of them travelling from one city to other city, they can have the experience and exposure of playing in different soils and different kinds of pitches, you know, which will enhance their performance.
On the rehab mechanism
The idea is to prevent injuries. And that’s why there’s been focus on recovery and setting fitness standards, it’s very, very critical. In fact, what we have done over the last two years is to standardize the fitness procedures right from top to bottom. It’s not only the Indian cricket team, but even the state teams.
Everyone knows how to maintain the fitness levels and what kind of programmes, what kind of sessions they are required to do to achieve those fitness standards, so that when they come to the national team, they’re not starting from scratch. As far as the skill is concerned, everyone may be different, but the fitness standards can be maintained, so I think both are very important, because you are required to upskill. Only then you can progress. Anyone who is stagnating and with the amount of data analytics that we have at our disposal, a player can be easily found out.
If a player is fit, if a player‘s fitness standards are improving day by day, automatically his performance will also be enhanced, so both of them are very, very critical.
A day in the life of VVS Laxman, the NCA head.
When I took up this role in December 2021, obviously I was very reluctant. But once I embraced this position and role, it’s been such a satisfying and fulfilling experience. You’re dealing with not only the established international stars, but you’re creating the bench strength. And that has been very, very fulfilling, to see the amount of talent, to see the amount of potential at our disposal.
The whole idea is how to monitor them, how to groom them, so that they realise their potential. For that, I have got a wonderful team. We have the head of education, Sujith Somasundar, then the head of sports science, who is Nitin Patel. And then I have got unbelievably experienced coaches. We got two spin bowling coaches – Sairaj Bahutule, Rajiv Dutta, three batting coaches – Apurva Desai, Hrishikesh Kanitkar and Shitanshu Kotak. One fast bowling coach – Troy Cooley, who is very experienced. And two fielding coaches – Munish Bali and Subhadip Ghosh.
Typically, we discuss, we plan, we brainstorm and come up with the necessary programmes so that the young deserving players get an opportunity, exposure to develop as cricketers. Then there are various coaches who go out and execute that. Not only the coaches who are on a full-time basis with NCA, we also have coaches across the country who come to the ZCA camps. After every ZCA camp, we have a tournament and then the best performers from that tournament are selected for the NCA camp, which is the High Performance Camp.
It’s a non-stop grind and it’s quite satisfying, it’s quite fulfilling. Through this ZCA tournament, we also rank the coaches and one of the expectations I have from the coach education department is how do we create the bench strength of coaches. So, we know who is our number one batting coach, number two batting coach, same with the bowling, spin bowling, fast bowling and fielding for both men and women. So, there is a system by which we are ranking the physios, we are ranking the S&Cs, we are ranking the performance analysts, we are ranking the coaches, so that, no one is stagnating.
Everyone is recognised for their contribution and everyone is progressing in their respective careers. It’s great that everyone has embraced what we are trying to achieve along with the state associations because we do a lot of workshops with the state association.
We upskill the physios, the S&Cs, the performance analysts, the coaches by having various workshops with the state associations. Everyone has been collaborating with what we are trying to do. The whole idea is from top to bottom, right through our First Class ecosystem, age group ecosystem to what the national team is doing.
On ensuring young cricketers aren’t confused with different styles of coaching at local level and at NCA
For any player, we give options. It’s not that we dictate to them that you have to do this or you have to change… no. It’s the options and ultimately the player should feel comfortable acknowledging and accepting that option.
If he feels that it’s working for him, he will embrace it and he will continue to use it through the season. The whole objective is to give that exposure to the player. And another thing which we have done is monitoring the players, both men and women.
When Rahul [Dravid] was the head coach of the Indian team, he used to take care of the contracted players and we at the NCA used to take care of the targeted players. Then we had the emerging players and then the under-19 players. So, we used to take care of them throughout the year.
They used to come for the camps and once they go back to their respective state association, we used to monitor them. And every coach would have at least 10 players to monitor, so one spin bowling coach like Sairaj would have 10 spinners under him, and he will monitor their progress.
We know what areas they are required to work on. Through the year, we make sure that the player is working. We collaborate with the coaches back in the state. The majority of those coaches are part of our ecosystem through the summer programmes. It’s always a very open and inclusive way of working. It’s not that we are telling something different and suddenly the player is finding it totally different when he goes back to the state association.
I think the information is passed, the communication channel is very transparent and open. We also have something known as athlete management system (AMS), where all the players who come and attend the ZCA camp and the NCA camps, a profile is created for them and right from their reports of the skills to the fitness to the musculoskeletal screening report, we have got mental conditioners who come and work with them. Every report of that player is there in that AMS.
We are going to even request the state association to follow that process. At least 50 players of each state association — 25 men and 25 women — should be on the AMS because we have done a lot of work to make AMS quite proactive.
The whole idea is, if a player comes to NCA or is part of any ZCA camp, five or 10 years from now, his file should be there. We also will know how the player has progressed and it will become very easy for anyone who is taking care of that player to know what the player has gone through every year. That is the inclusive kind of programmes we want to implement.
The biggest part here is the player. Everything is player-centric and we want the player to benefit. We don’t want the player to get confused. We don’t want the player to suddenly feel the burden as to whose advice he has to follow. So, I think everything is inclusive. We take into confidence the state association coaches. Because ultimately the state association coaches spend a lot more time with that player than us, because we just get one month with them. The rest of the year, the state association coaches take care of them, so it is a nice collaborative effort we are doing.
On challenges of readying cricketers for workloads and handling pressure
As far as junior cricketers are concerned, as I said, we have got mental conditioners who come. They spend eight to 10 days of the 30-day camp or 25-day camp with the players… for understanding their strengths, the areas they require to work on. They give tools for the players to go back and work on. For me, and if you ask any cricketer who has played for a long time, ultimately what you think in between your two years makes a massive difference, so we give a lot of importance to the mental aspect of the game.
There are three professionals for both men and women who come and work with the players. As far as the fitness part or the recovery part or the SSM (Sports Science and Medicine) part is concerned, one of the main challenges was how to standardise. A player who is at the NCA or when they are in the ZCA camps or when they are with the Indian teams, when they go back to the state association, how can they continue to work on the fitness level with the same intensity they did when they were in these camps or with the Indian team.
Credit to the state associations that they have also started investing a lot in their sports science team. That’s why we tied up with ASCA, which is the Australian Strength and Conditioning Association, they came and we did a level 1 and level 2, which is your beginners’ and intermediate programme for the last three years. We are also trying to upskill the S&Cs.
We also do workshops for the physiotherapists. When a player goes back to their respective state association, they know what to do. Managing their workload there, with the amount of cricket we play throughout the year and majority of the state players play all the three formats. Very few states have a different team for Mushtaq Ali and a different team for Ranji Trophy. A lot of them play all the three formats and it’s from one tournament to the next and to the next. The sports science team at the state association level are also very good as far as knowledge is concerned, experience is concerned and there is a nice integration and a collaborative oneness between the SSM department at the NCA and the state association SSM departments.
The variety in the conditions that’s being made available here, how important will that be going forward and what is the best way to make the most of it?
I used the word adaptability before. Adaptability is nothing but creating situations a player gets to confront during the matches, so that you can create by having a lot of match simulations or playing a lot of matches. You create different scenarios where the player is put into that position or situation which he is going to confront. As far as the pitches are concerned, sometimes you can give a green top.
Luckily, this [the facility] being in Bangalore, the weather is a big boon. We all know that in Bangalore, throughout the year we can have a lot of cricket and throughout the day. With three different soils, you can make different kind of pitches for them. Turning tracks, seam friendly based on what time of the day the wicket may behave differently. It‘s all about adapting to different pitch conditions. These are the two things which we require our players to work on so that when they are playing at the highest level, they are ready for different challenges.
We also have an ‘A’ programme. Every year, we make sure that we have at least two ‘A’ series. Sometimes it can be challenging because we want to have an ‘A’ series, but the other boards will be busy with their own domestic cricket. Or they may not be ready to accommodate us. But at least we try to have two ‘A’ series. We want all our players not to miss too much of domestic cricket, so I think the ‘A’ programme allows us to go to different parts of the world and get experience.
We are going to Australia in November. End of October and November, we will be playing three matches in Australia. Twice we have been to South Africa. Hopefully, we will go to New Zealand and next year there is a tour to England, which is already lined up. At home, we played against England at the start of this year. We played against New Zealand two years back. We went to Bangladesh – even though we wanted to play on rank turners, they gave us green tops there unfortunately. But it is just about getting exposure to different kinds of conditions so that when they graduate to the national team, they are ready. It is not a surprise to them. That is the whole objective of the ‘A’ programme. The pitches here will allow them to improve their adaptability. And the three beautiful grounds will allow them to face any situation with a lot of confidence.
In the past, there has been a lot of misconception about how NCA is just used for rehab programmes and stuff and how players getting back also are getting injured, but you have seen it with Rishabh Pant, how well NCA managed. How do you ensure there is no mistrust between the NCA and top players?
I can’t comment on what has happened in the past, but I can say with a lot of conviction that I am very, very proud of everyone, every member of my team and also the SSM team because it is high-pressure work for them. They are dealing with injuries and there is a misconception that the timelines have to be met. We are talking about bodies and as someone who has had back injury towards the end of my international career, I understand that sometimes you know that you will be fit in a particular time frame, but sometimes the recovery or the result won’t be seen.
Having patience and following the protocols is very, very critical. As long as you follow all the protocols and coming from a doctor’s family, I know for a fact that as a doctor, my parents, they always wanted to follow all the protocols, what is required for the patient and sometimes the recovery can be a little late. But full credit to the entire SSM team for the way with patience, they have handled each and every player and also credit to the players because we have seen Rishabh Pant’s case and we have seen Jassi [Jasprit Bumrah] being here, Shreyas [Iyer] being here, we have seen KL [Rahul] being here, Prasidh [Krishna] being here, a lot of players, I can’t single out one or two, but whoever came here, I mean they have really worked hard.
The challenging part of the rehab is, when you are doing rehab, the entire rehab will be probably for two or three hours in the whole day and the whole day they got nothing to do and we are talking about elite sportsperson who actually is busy playing six to eight hours or practising six to eight hours. Suddenly they realise that they are confined to the rehab room or the gym and once they recover and they progress to the ground, it’s maximum four to five hours, but they are required to still be mentally strong and not get frustrated.
All of them have really responded well and credit to the SSM team and to the players for the effort they have put in and the kind of patience they have shown, the kind of mental strength they have shown is just phenomenal. They have conversations at various stages of their rehab, I have been in that situation because as a player when you know the shelf-life is very less, you want every day to count, every day you want to be out there in the middle playing as much as possible, but sometimes you have to accept the fact that you are required to recover properly before going and again participating actively at whatever level you are playing. It’s very important that the player also understands that and if someone is there for rehab, there will be one or two conversations with them. I joke with my SSM team that they are also good mental conditioners or they are also good counsellors because there will be days, there will be moments when the player will feel a little down, will feel a little frustrated, but you have those conversations and sort of convince the player that whatever is happening is in the best interest.
It’s important for them to be patient and credit to the players that they have shown a lot of patience and the reward is there for everyone to see. The most remarkable thing and, here again, I would like to compliment BCCI because right from the day Rishabh Pant got injured till the day he recovered and was discharged from NCA, you know they have taken care, right from admitting him in the hospital in Dehra Dun to airlifting him for the operation, everything was taken care of.
On the focus areas in camps at the NCA
One thing which we do in our camps also is we challenge the players by giving them, maybe, a used wicket and suddenly we create a situation where they are playing the fourth or the fifth day of a Test match and we challenge them with ‘we want you to play along the ground, no lofted shot’.
Those kind of situations — again adaptability — the players are getting adapted to various situations and the conditions they are going to play at the highest level. Plus the ‘A’ team gets the exposure of playing, the whole idea of the ‘A’ programme is you are going there and playing in those conditions and when they graduate to the highest level they will be ready for those conditions. Sometimes if it is a tour just before the main international series, then automatically some of the players who are part of the main series also will come and play with the ‘A’ team players. Playing in those conditions, understanding and experiencing those conditions is always helpful and that gives the player an opportunity to be ready while playing international series.
On ensuring each Under-19 batch gets due exposure
When you go from one U-19 World Cup to another, there is always one batch that misses out playing for India U-19. I am not saying that it is the most important step in their growth and progress as a cricketer, when you represent India at any level it gives that confidence — it gave me a lot of confidence when I represented India in 1994 against the youth teams of Australia and England — that gave me recognition that also helped me to fast track my progress as a cricketer.
Currently we are playing a series against Australia U-19 and luckily a lot of the guys who may miss out on the next World Cup are part of this series. Overall, the exposure is there and they also are not only restricted or constrained only for the World Cup. We want them to evolve as cricketers and just because someone played India Under-19 or not doesn’t mean that they won’t progress in their career. If they play at the highest level, understand the pressures of a World Cup, that will enhance their mental strength and progress as cricketers.
Talking about Under-19, I was so impressed during my first assignment in this role. When I went to West Indies with the Under-19 side and that was during the Covid period and the resilience and the mental strength shown by the Yash Dhull-led Under-19 team was just phenomenal.
There were six players who were down with Covid at one stage and we had only 11 players who played three matches. We played against Ireland, we played against Bangladesh and even against Australia. Two matches we had only 11 and then all of them were in Trinidad and then straightaway they flew into Antigua and played the semifinals and then the finals and they won the tournament.
I was so proud of the boys of the amount of mental strength they showed and again, credit to BCCI, because the way they helped the entire team during the pandemic including Nitin who was not the head of sports science but he was the head physio with the Indian team in South Africa. Everyone contributed in that challenge and that was something I was very proud of. At such a young age, for the players to show that kind of resilience is really great. It was great to see.
Then at the Under-19 Women’s World Cup, it was the first edition and the girls didn’t have exposure to T20 cricket because they didn’t play T20 cricket at U-19 level at that time. Suddenly for them to go and win the inaugural World Cup was a phenomenal achievement. It augurs well for Indian cricket when youngsters show that mental strength, youngsters show that resilience which will help them to progress in their careers. And again, I told you about the bench strength we have for women.
There is so much of upside for women’s cricket. Through this role, it was my first exposure working and seeing the young girls and the international women players work from close quarters. The kind of commitment, dedication and the intensity with which they practise and prepare is unmatched.
I am very proud of the way they prepare. The WPL is a great initiative. Just like how the IPL helped Indian uncapped players to progress in their careers, fast track them into international cricket, I am sure the WPL will be a gamechanger for the women cricketers.