Fitness And The Indian Cricket Team

Train like an athlete, eat like a nutritionist, sleep like a baby, win like a champion – by following this mantra, the Indian cricket team has transformed itself into world-beaters.

- Ajay Naidu

When former team India coach, Duncan Fletcher, said that “Cricket is the most unprofessional of all professional sports,” he was obviously referring to the happy-go-lucky manner in which cricketers conducted themselves when it came to their diet, training and preparation. However, it was not as if other Indian coaches didn’t want to enforce a strict diet and training regime; it was just that with so many superstars in the team, it was impossible to make everyone look in the same direction. The first thing that the most high-profile former India coach, Greg Chappell, would do - every time the team checked into a different city was to call up the hotel chef and tell him the strict “do’s and don’ts” regarding the food that was to be served to the players. But with top cricketers having friends who would smuggle the greasy stuff to their rooms, things didn’t always work out as planned.

For example, this writer knew for a fact that during his early years in the Indian team, Virat Kohli was extremely fond of shikanji (a high-calorie drink made of milk, dry fruits, ice-cream and sugar). Accordingly, every time the team came to Nagpur for a match, the first thing that Kohli would do was to request his friends to get the drink delivered to him in the hotel - and he would have two glasses in one go.

It was also the case that the cricketers never believed that they needed to be as fit as athletes in other sports. This might have been because Test cricket was spread over five days, whereas the premier ODI tournament—the World Cup—would happen once in four years. Perhaps it was because of the advent of the cash-rich T20 cricket, and also the fact that cricket is now played right through the year, that players now understand that they have to be super-fit if they are to play all three formats.