![\"India's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/India-s-Jasprit-Bumrah-and-Prasidh-Krishna-during-_1755872900914.jpg\" "\\"India's")
India’s Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna during a training session ahead of the fifth Test against England. (PTI) <\/p>\nKolkata: In a skill-based sport like cricket, fitness once conformed to the seasonal calendar and hence, needed off-season, pre-season and pre-competition camps.<\/p>\n
India’s Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna during a training session ahead of the fifth Test against England. (PTI) <\/p>\n
But as the sport grew, fitness was viewed through a holistic lens that caters to power, endurance, agility, flexibility and reaction time of cricketers on an individual basis. And since everyone has different physical thresholds, the need to monitor and manage their fitness has become a year-round practice. Which is why the concept of training in the off-season \u2014 a window India rarely get these days \u2014 has undergone several makeovers in the last three decades.<\/p>\n
The ideal pre-season used to be a six to eight-week window, a phase where cricketers could afford to ramp down and up again. But now that window barely stretches a month. This time, for example, India are getting just four weeks between the Test tour of England and the Asia Cup that will be played in the T20 format.<\/p>\n
Playing two different formats in the space of a month may seem a fairly easy transition to the casual observer but it involves tough recalibrations, says John Gloster, a renowned strength and conditioning expert who has worked with senior national teams of India, Bangladesh as well as the Rajasthan Royals franchise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe intensity of the T20 game is so high that it mimics the physical exertions of an ODI,\u201d Gloster told HT. \u201cBut the players today have access to better technology, better training and a better understanding of their workload. So, I think they\u2019re a better protected athlete, and therefore a better prepared athlete than they were, you know, back when we didn\u2019t have so much data.\u201d<\/p>\n
Data can only do so much though. Bridging the gap between the end and start of two seasons requires a much more nuanced effort. \u201cThe biggest danger is when you jump from red ball to white ball and back to red ball, and not being conditioned appropriately for the demands of each of those formats. That\u2019s when the risk outweighs things,\u201d said Gloster.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re looking at, say, a fast bowler, there\u2019s actually more damage to them if you don\u2019t maintain some level of bowling activity during the layover periods. So, the idea and the best way to protect these athletes and make them more resilient is to actually keep them doing some level of bowling activity during that rest and recovery period.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gloster calls this an \u2018active rest\u2019 period, where cricketers are resting from anything that may aggravate the workload, but still maintaining some level of activity to keep them resilient and protected. \u201cThat\u2019s where it\u2019s changed. We now have a greater understanding of load management or work management in order to protect them from injury,\u201d he said. \u201cThe old sort of understanding of a complete break can actually be damaging because what you then need to do is you then need to extend your credit and return to bowling, return to load, return to activity period.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, that\u2019s okay if you\u2019ve got six or eight weeks, because that\u2019s how long it takes. If they\u2019ve had a complete break for more than four weeks, they then need a four to six-week block in order to return to an acceptable level of load that\u2019s going to protect them. So, no load and then load is very dangerous. Too much load is very dangerous, and then spikes of load are also dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is where the workload of Jasprit Bumrah comes under the scanner. Bumrah is a special bowler who has had breakdowns, major surgeries and has spent months in rehab. Ideally, India would like him to lead the Test bowling as well as the T20 bowling, be fit for the IPL, the T20 World Cup and then the ODI World Cup.<\/p>\n
That also means different workloads switching different formats, all in the span of a few months, but with a rider. \u201cThere\u2019s a 30% difference in high-speed running efforts in white ball cricket than there is in red ball cricket,\u201d said Gloster. \u201cSo, if you haven\u2019t done the high-speed running preparation during the Test series before you enter a T20 competition, then your risk of tearing a muscle, soft tissue injury is very, very high.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which is why Gloster feels the role of Adrian Le Roux, India\u2019s current strength and conditioning coach is so important. \u201cHaving one eye on the forward calendar is very important,\u201d he said. \u201cAdrian will have one eye on what they\u2019ve done, respecting their workloads from that and whether they need to be rested or not, or reconditioned, and another eye on what format of cricket they are going into.\u201d<\/p>\n
More workload management than pre-season training really, which doesn\u2019t necessarily have to be viewed negatively considering the amount of cricket India play throughout the year. The smart players and smart organisations are using data more effectively now to accurately understand what the exertions are on the field, and then replicating that in the training environment, something Gloster feels India are doing better now with their fast bowlers.<\/p>\n
The burnout is real though. And since the strength and conditioning unit maintains a daily check of the workload of players, Gloster sees no reason why they shouldn\u2019t be consulted ahead of selection meetings. \u201cWhether it\u2019s Jasprit Brummer or Prasidh Krishna or whoever, the same consideration and the same process goes into selecting any player in any squad,\u201d he said. \u201cYou weigh up their risk profile, and then you factor that into what format is coming up, because the greatest risk is if you\u2019re underprepared for the format that they\u2019re going into.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kolkata: In a skill-based sport like cricket, fitness once conformed to the seasonal calendar and hence, needed off-season,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,538,8469,65679,65680,85,65681],"class_list":{"0":"post-88013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-fitness","12":"tag-indian-cricket","13":"tag-injury-management","14":"tag-john-gloster","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-t20-format"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}