Have you ever wondered what a cricketer goes through when he is fasting in Ramadan and still has to train, bowl long spells, field in the heat, stay sharp under pressure, and recover for the next day?
From the stands or on TV, it can look like just another shift on the field. Inside the body, though, Ramadan can turn a normal cricket day into a tightly managed test of hydration, fuel timing, sleep, heat tolerance and decision-making, which is exactly why former England seamer and Lancashire bowling coach Kabir Ali's description of it as tough feels so accurate.
Why Ramadan fasting hits cricketers
Cricket is not a continuous endurance sport like a marathon, but that does not make fasting easy. In fact, the stop-start nature of cricket can be brutal in its own way. A player may spend hours outdoors, then suddenly need a sprint, a dive, a high-skill release at the crease, or repeated bowling efforts with precision.
Research on Ramadan fasting in athletes consistently highlights three major stressors: daytime dehydration risk, shifted nutrition timing, and sleep disruption, as both meals and hydration fall within a restricted night window. For cricketers, those factors interact with long match duration and outdoor exposure, making planning essential.
How international cricketers and teams manage it
{{/usCountry}}Research on Ramadan fasting in athletes consistently highlights three major stressors: daytime dehydration risk, shifted nutrition timing, and sleep disruption, as both meals and hydration fall within a restricted night window. For cricketers, those factors interact with long match duration and outdoor exposure, making planning essential.
How international cricketers and teams manage it
{{/usCountry}}The encouraging part is that elite cricket has increasingly moved toward support systems rather than assumptions.
Cricket Australia previously reported that Usman Khawaja spoke about managing Ramadan with the support of coaches and fitness staff, including making sensible decisions about training and performance demands. In England’s county ecosystem, ECB and PCA materials have also focused on practical support—adjusting load, understanding fatigue, and building awareness —rather than treating fasting as a problem to be “fixed.”
That is an important shift. The best environments now tend to ask: How do we help the player perform safely and well while respecting fasting, not simply, Can he cope?
Pakistan cricket examples that show the reality
Pakistan cricket has also produced strong public examples of what fasting athletes deal with on match days.
One of the most cited came in the 2021 T20I series in South Africa, when Babar Azam praised Mohammad Rizwan for performing while fasting, describing the effort as a display of courage and commitment. That moment resonated because it captured what teammates often see up close: the physical and mental strain is real, even when the scoreboard only shows runs and catches.
Another widely discussed Pakistan-related example involved Mohammad Rizwan recounting that Babar Azam refused to casually break Ramadan observance during a commercial shoot, a story reported in 2022. It underlined that Ramadan management for players is not only a sports-science issue but also one of discipline, routine and personal conviction.
Kabir Ali’s statement on managing Ramadan
Kabir Ali is a former England fast bowler who represented England in one Test and 14 ODIs between 2003 and 2006, and has now returned to Lancashire as their bowling coach. His only Test cap came against South Africa at Headingley in 2003, where he picked up five wickets in the match. The Indian fans might remember him from his four-wicket haul in Delhi in 2006, in which he dismissed Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh.
He called Ramadan fasting “obviously tough” but manageable with sense and planning. He stressed the importance of getting the right fluids, acknowledged that busy days make it harder, and pointed out something every high-performance environment should remember: teammates and coaches often ease intensity because they understand what a fasting player is going through. Then he added, “At the same time, you have to be sensible yourself.”
That is the whole Ramadan-cricket equation in one thought: team support, athlete responsibility, and a body that needs smart management to keep delivering.