BCCI organizing a tournament before we play international games would be great, reckons Bharat Arun

The Covid-19 pandemic bringing the world to a standstill, aside from cricketers not playing matches, has meant that players have barely been able to train outdoors. After a three-month hiatus, it is only now that teams across the world are slowly returning back to outdoor training, and that, too, mostly on a batch-by-batch basis, in order to be precautious and curb the spread of the virus. The long lay-off has left people fearing the overflow of rust within the athletes, with many even believing that high-intensity workouts could, in fact, result in players getting injured due to their bodies being gingerly owing to the long break.

Bharat Arun, the bowling coach of the Indian national team, has stated that the team would require a camp which lasts a minimum of 6-8 weeks before they could consider playing international cricket, owing to the sheer time they’ve spent off the field. Arun also added that he would be thankful if the BCCI could organize an intra-country tournament of sorts to get players back into the rigour. 

“It’d take us at least 6-8 weeks for us to play international matches, whereby we’d be first working on the skill, and fitness in the camps and then we’ll progress onto match simulations, and hopefully the BCCI can organize a tournament just before we play the international matches, that would be great for us,” Arun said during the ‘Lockdown But Not Out’ series by FanCode, reported HT. 

The bowling coach, however, added that contrary to the general notion, he is not too worried about the bowlers.

“I’m not worried about the bowlers because they’ve had ample time in the last 2 months, to work on strength and their fitness. Very rarely does an international cricketer, especially our bowlers, would get this kind of time to work on their fitness. Also, it is a wonderful opportunity for them to get over the little niggles, that they may have got over the long season.”

The Indian cricket team were handed their biggest disappointment in years when they, despite being favourites, were knocked out of the World Cup in the semis by New Zealand last year and Arun said that the loss, till date, continues to haunt everyone associated with the team. The 57-year-old, however, attested that the side will do everything within their power, next time around, to ensure that 2019 never gets repeated.

“The World Cup loss still hurts us. It’s still hurting us and we’ll probably go all out to see that we leave no stone unturned in our preparation to make sure that we do exceptionally well in the World Cup. To win a World Cup, I think we need to really plan well and how far we execute our plan.”