Soon we may have bored young cricketers instead of inspired ones
When I visited the South Zone Cricket Academy last month, I was struck by how homesick some of them were or ought to be, judging from the length of time they had spent away from their families, in their nonstop pursuit of their favourite game
V Ramnarayan
30-Jul-2001
When I visited the South Zone Cricket Academy last month, I was struck
by how homesick some of them were or ought to be, judging from the
length of time they had spent away from their families, in their nonstop pursuit of their favourite game. Ambati Rayudu, for instance had
been away for nearly a year, if you didn't count brief visits home
between numerous cricket trips. Doesn't this tell on the quality of
their cricket, I wondered.
Today's young cricketers play many more matches than earlier
generations. (It is another matter that inter-school cricket, which
provided the players much pleasure and excitement in an era with a
less crowded schedule, is now almost entirely of the limited overs
variety - and I don't believe that is the best way to nurture young
talent). They don't stop there; they attend a number of coaching camps
and physical training programmes. In fact, both the administration and
private `academies' ensure that the boys never spend an idle moment.
The result is year-round cricket in one form or another, highlighted
by summer camps that eat up the youngsters' entire vacation.
Things were different in our playing days thirty or more years ago. We
actually had an off-season. For at least two months a year, there was
a total holiday from cricket. No matches, no coaching, no net
practice. Being young, we played other games during the period, and
managed to keep physically fit and active, and were before long
straining at the leash to play cricket.
Net practice began some 15 days before the start of the new season. A
couple of friendly matches would be organized, so that we were not
totally devoid of match practice by the time the first match of the
season came round.
I can never forget the delicious sense of anticipation and eager
impatience that preceded the start of each new season. The first day
you started to middle the ball and time your strokes or the first time
you bowled a really satisfying spell in the nets filled you with a
special feeling that can only be described as a high. Every new
season, skin peeled off my spinning finger, and it even bled. I, like
other spinners, had my own little remedies to handle the condition,
the chief one being more and more bowling so that a hard callus formed
on the finger. The more the spinning finger hurt, the more you knew
you were on your way to reaching peak form, and the very thought
filled you with delight.
I wonder whether such a scenario is at all possible when cricket is
played round the year. Do young cricketers any longer experience the
first fine rapture of the first day of nets, or the first match of the
season, when they have hardly left the old one behind? And during the
few days they get away from playing matches, strenuous and sincere
efforts are made to make them better cricketers with coaching camps,
clinics and the like? Are we soon going to see situations in junior
cricket akin to the injury-ridden plight of the senior Indian team in
Sri Lanka?