Scoring with technology: The gadgets in Team India’s kit

Soon after taking over as India coach in 2000, John Wright was in for a shock. He saw tea and snacks being served to players during nets, and chairs placed all around. In his book, ‘Indian Summers’, Wright described how he removed chairs from the nets and the practice of pampering players with tea and snacks was stopped.

Soon after taking over as India coach in 2000, John Wright was in for a shock. He saw tea and snacks being served to players during nets, and chairs placed all around. In his book, ‘Indian Summers’, Wright described how he removed chairs from the nets and the practice of pampering players with tea and snacks was stopped.

Customised information is now being fed into players’ iPads with relevant information on routine training and fitness. (Subhankar Chakraborty/HT Photo)

It wasn’t as if Wright disliked what he saw. He wanted to change what denoted comfort. Down the years, the team understood the meaning of fitness. The inclusion of professional trainers, physiotherapists and strict diet regimes is in sync with the changing world of professional athletes. Conventional thinking that cricket is a skill-based game has given way to a performance-centric mindset.

In the era gone by, injuries were assessed without getting to the bottom of the problem as the team management did not have information about bio-mechanics, which can offer accurate assessments. Body load, acceleration-deceleration while bowling fast, body contortion, phases of peak performance, the energy spent while bowling fast were beyond the comprehension of most players.

India players, particularly those from hinterland, were more averse to change as the concepts went against their beliefs. Some argued that it was too much of information and interfered with their natural game.

Infrared sensor: The stop-watch, the old training ground faithful, has given way to the modern infrared timer. The gadget used to clock the timing and help the athlete work on speed and acceleration, essentially build on explosive power, has been in use for some time now. The infrared timer is used essentially at the National Cricket Academy. Measuring poles, around five or six of them, are placed at equidistance from each other every 10 or 20 metres to gauge with pinpoint accuracy the acceleration of the player between two poles. It has proved an excellent gadget to help measure agility as cricketers constantly push their athleticism. Accurate, affordable and flexible, it is used on the training ground across many sports. (Subhankar Chakraborty/HT Photo)

The initial task of the newly-hired professionals was to win over the players’ faith. Greg Chappell’s support staff, particularly Ian Frazer, the bio-mechanics expert, introduced tools to identify players’ strengths and weaknesses.

“As far as I am concerned, the players embraced the gadgets and saw the benefits. The gadget need not be expensive to be effective. It has to add value to performance and not because it’s in vogue in other countries. Apart from empirical data, gadgets can give a different perspective to physical and mental aspects,” said Ramji Srinivasan, former India trainer.

Tracking device: The Catapult, developed in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Sport, has been in use for over eight years and is used in more than 20 sports at the elite level, to gauge fitness, rehabilitation and for technical analysis. This unobtrusive package has an array of sophisticated sensors which record important parameters of an athlete’s activity up to 100 times per second. T (Subhankar Chakraborty/HT Photo)

When the iPod gained popularity, the India team used it to feed clips of opposition batsmen’s weaknesses to the bowlers to analyse at leisure. Even their own performance clips — dismissals and bowling during practice and matches were fed.

To create a culture of fitness, the team management under Gary Kirsten introduced a rewards programme towards the beginning of the 2011 World Cup. A test was carried out on players on a weekly basis, and their body-mass index (BMI) was logged in the team register. Running, endurance and other fitness tests accounted for points and the one with the highest marks was declared the player of the week. Penalties ensured the practice was followed diligently.

“We had a weekly review and winners were announced according to the number of points they logged. There was a sense of competition among the players to get the maximum points. The cooperation of the senior and junior players was terrific,” said Ramji.

Foam roller: The bumps knead the contours of the body, gently stretching soft tissue (muscle and fascia) in multiple directions. The action erodes trigger points, helping restore flexibility, and brings quick relief to common types of muscular pain. Through simple techniques, one can control the amount of pressure the bumps apply to the body. The bumps are closely spaced, so several of them simultaneously come in contact with the body during exercise. With a slight shift of the body, one can reduce the area of contact, which increases pressure and provides greater relief. (Subhankar Chakraborty/HT Photo)

When India toured Australia in 2011-12, the Catapult, an effective tool with a GPS tracking system, was introduced. It was a chip that sent information to a small screen on a player’s movement pattern, helped assess the energy used, distance covered, point of acceleration and deceleration, mapped the bowling load and identified peak performance phases.

“The gadgets have been in vogue for some time, be it from the days of the heart rate monitor to the current GPS tracking device. They have played a crucial role in assessing an individual athlete or a group, be it for bio-mechanics, physiological assessment, fitness testing or any sort of body analysis. They’re like a double-edged sword and have to be used at the right time and place to derive data for desired results,” said Ramji.

Stretch rope: Stretch rope has the ability to maintain resistance in all directions, resulting in the activating of the flexor and extensor muscles. The flexor is a muscle that decreases the angle between bones. An extensor is a muscle that increases the angle between bones. (Subhankar Chakraborty/HT Photo)

Customised information is now being fed into players’ iPads with relevant information on routine training and fitness. It wasn’t long that S Sreesanth showed up in a Nike watch that showed the heart rate, calories spent and distance covered. Now, MS Dhoni sports an Apple watch with customised personal apps that keep track of his body movement and training profile.

“The programme is individualised according to the sport and skill. Any adjustment can be made in tandem with experts. It’s up to them to infer the data correctly and apply it. The data needs to be transparent and has to percolate down to the players and others involved for the specific need it is used for,” said Ramji.

In view of the growing need to be tech-savvy, there is the temptation to imitate all that looks fancy, and that’s where the risk lies.

“When Team India was introduced to new methodologies of training, everything was Indianised and individualised because there were so many variables like genetic loading, food habits, facilities available, back-up services, etc, which we could not lift from Australia, England or South Africa and apply to our athletes. At the highest level, you cannot cut and paste or copy workouts from other trainers or teams,” cautioned Ramji.