BENGALURU: As one walks through the sprawling BCCI Centre of Excellence on the outskirts of Bengaluru on Sunday, it is hard to miss the Indian women’s team put in the yards. Ahead of the Women’s Asia Cup later this year, most India players including skipper Harmanpreet Kaur are at the CoE for a preparatory camp.
Established two years ago, the state-of-the-art facility — which includes three grounds, numerous pitches which resemble various conditions, sports science facility, etc — has been in the news for all the bad reasons in recent times. Growing injury list across men and women, recurring breakdowns, slow recovery coupled with poor results has raised questions over the facility's role in Indian cricket. On a breezy Sunday afternoon, BCCI top brass, including president Mithun Manhas and secretary Devajit Saikia, along with head of CoE VVS Laxman, met with a select media group to address the concerns and give a lowdown on the progress the facility has made since its inception.
At the core of it all is the functionality of CoE, which Laxman made clear, "It is not merely a rehab centre". It splits into three verticals: skill development and high performance, sports science and sports medicine and education. The CoE conducts camps, monitors and works with more than 150 cricketers across age-groups at any time of the year in coordination with the respective state associations.
While Laxman elaborated on the inner workings of the facility, the one thing he made clear is that there is no gap in communication between CoE, the selectors and head coach Gautam Gambhir about injuries. "Seamless" is the word the former India batter used to describe the communication as he explained the protocol when a player gets injured.
"The process starts with diagnosing the injury and finishes with a player declaring fit after the two RTP (Return To Play) matches we had," Laxman said. "Once the diagnosis happens, those players, through the Indian team staff, are sent to the CoE. From the time they come here, we clinically examine, assess them. The physio plays a part. Once the player is ready for the next phase, which is your strength and conditioning. Slowly they go to the skill part and then we build up the load. Then we play two RTP matches before we declare the player fit. Until and unless the benchmark is not met, or in fact got better, we don't release. Now, it's an objective way of assessing the player to move from one stage to the next stage. But it's the human body. It is not a machine where the timelines will always be met. So there's a continuous process of understanding how a player is progressing," he explained.
Laxman reiterated that injuries are part and parcel of the sport and one cannot expect athletes to take the field with the fear of getting injured. "When someone is playing at the elite level, you're supposed to give more than 100%. Because if you're not, then you're not doing justice to the role. There's no doubt that the modern generation of players has to play a lot more cricket than I used to play. But that's fine. I just want to reiterate that when you're playing at the highest level, you finish your series. From that series to the next series, you automatically work hard on getting better, on getting fitter. Even though you do that, playing at the highest level, you can get injured. If you're thinking about not getting injured, then you're not playing to the best of your ability," said the former India batter.
The 51-year-old from Hyderabad took the role of head of CoE and moved to Bengaluru when Rahul Dravid became head coach in late 2021. Laxman wanted to continue with the role in 2024 when the Indian coaching job came along as the BCCI moved on from the old National Cricket Academy at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium to the new CoE on the outskirts of the city. Since then, Laxman has been working towards establishing the new facility. While taking pride in his accomplishments at the CoE, Laxman left his future at the facility open to interpretation. “Because (former BCCI secretary) Jay (Shah) and the BCCI gave me the freedom to execute my vision, and Devajit continues to give me, I've extended (stint at CoE) for two years, and I committed to the BCCI that I'm not taking up the head coach position. You all know that I was approached back in 2024," Laxman said. I'll make sure that I establish the CoE, its structure, the processes and the protocols, which I just shared with all the SOPs for every department, you know, before I move on, after the two years' stay. So I think I'm very happy that I've been able — also because of the team we have — to establish a very, very world class programme at the CoE," he added.