VISAKHAPATNAM: Team India’s strength and conditioning coach Shankar Basu has handed in his resignation to the Board of Control for Cricket in India. It is learnt that he took the decision shortly after the fifth Test against England. The team management requested him to reconsider, but Basu has already asked the BCCI to relieve him of his duties.
The BCCI is yet to take a call as England are set to return to India for the ODI series beginning on January 15. If the BCCI accepts the resignation, Sudarshan, who was previously part of the national side and is now with the National Cricket Academy, might be appointed.
Basu, who runs Primal Patterns Holistic Fitness Studio in Chennai, is a prominent name in sport circles, having worked with the likes of squash players Dipika Pallikal and Joshna Chinnappa. He is also in charge of the IPL side Royal Challengers Bangalore and worked with the Tamil Nadu Ranji Trophy in the past. Basu also concentrates on speed and reflex along with agility. Virat Kohli is a big fan of his fitness programmes and Basu was instrumental in making the Test skipper a world-class athlete.
Basu joined the India team before the 2015 tour of Sri Lanka, replacing Sudarshan, who was with the side from 2013. Since then, there has been a lot of improvement on this front. But in recent times, the team has suffered injuries, which seems to be one of the reasons behind Basu’s decision.
KL Rahul, Mohammad Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Wriddhiman Saha have all missed matches because of some injury or the other. Some have come back to the team before picking up the same injury again in mysterious circumstances.
Sources in the know revealed that a few players had raised the issue, and seemed to have called for a different training programme. “No player complained about his methods. But a few did raise questions about the intensity and the programme, which is normal, because for each player the routine is different. The team’s fitness has increased by leaps and bounds, and it is a huge shock that Basu resigned. We are still sitting over the letter,” BCCI sources told Express.
venkatakrishna@newindianexpress.com