I’ve always been someone who has been fascinated by ‘academies’. The joy of observing what actually happens at the grass-root levels and discovering the intricacies involved gives me a high that is unrivalled and so I often jump at the first opportunity I get to visit these places. In August, last year, I spent two full days at the MRF Pace Academy in Chennai and apart from having my fanboy moment (read: meeting Aussie cricketers of the past and the present) I got to know a lot of other cool stuff on what actually goes on there. I even befriended the security guards there, you know.

And so I get into my Uber. Mind you, unlike the previous trip, I was treating this more as an investigation of sorts, where I get to unravel stuff, and so I was reading up the controversial stuff published about the NCA. And there were A LOT. That kind of puzzled me. I mean, if you have so many people ‘anonymously’ speaking out against the academy, something clearly must not be right. One cricketer even went on to describe the academy as a ‘Place of Torment’.

Not sure if it was my (un)lucky day or if it’s an everyday thing, but the security guard at the gate was ASLEEP. I had to bang the door to wake him up and for some reason, he thought that I was a player. Either way, he let me in and YASSSS, there I was, finally, inside the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru. And so I decided to explore it. Mind you, I was still a long way away from the grounds/nets/practice pitches, so I was just ‘sightseeing’ this room next to the entrance.

It was more like a dungeon, it had this typical golden-yellow painting and it was full of dust. So much dust that it was covering a lot of eerie paintings and sayings. I parried the dust away to find two pictures - one of Jack Wilshere and another of Shane Bond. WHAT? And then, a couple of feet away from those pics, on the top right corner of the wall, is a picture of Gandalf with the caption “You shall not pass (the fitness test)”. WHAAAAT? Either way, I somehow made my way past the dust and debris to the ground and it was EMPTY. 8 AM and there was not a single soul that was practicing. Oh and en route to the ground, there was a room with the AC running on and someone sleeping tight. I was not quite able to figure out who it was, though. I was genuinely surprised that there was no one at the ground, though. 

So then I went to the other side, where the other group of cricketers were there, and they were resting, literally. No playing, no warming-up and these were fit cricketers, by the way. Some even had their laptops out. Curious, I went to them and asked them why they were static, and the answer was: “We don’t know what we’re supposed to do. Moreover, there’s no one overlooking what we do either. We take turns. Last week, we were playing out there (where the others were playing) and this week, we’re just...sitting. That’s what happens.”

All this non-supervision was happening to kids, mind you. “Where is the only supervisor that is the physio?” I thought to myself and went hunting for him. There he was, on the other side of the ground, one where the injured players usually do their rehab. At this time, there was no sign of no player; it was just the physio and his smartphone. I asked him what he’s up to and he told me that he was too busy denying allegations against him on Twitter and was also fighting with a few BCCI ‘sources’ who had accused him of doing a bad job with the injured players. “Don’t you care about the youngsters out there?,” I asked. “Only if and when they get injured” he said. Duh. 

At the end of the FIFTEENTH such over, the bowler finally breaks down. “Well done. You’re done for the day. See ya tomorrow” tells the Physio to the bowler as the latter is carried off the facility on a stretcher by three of his teammates. The Jack Wilshere picture now made sense to me. Astounded, I went and asked the physio what the hell that was. Well, I received a simple answer. “This is how we treat injuries. You make the bowlers get used to the pain and get all you can out of them. You do this for one whole month and eventually, they get used to the pain. And that’s when you pass them fit.”  

I then asked him if the same was done with Ishant recently and Bhuvi before that. He quickly pulled out his phone and showed me videos of both the bowlers, where they bowled two hours CONTINUOUSLY in the nets before being passed fit. He even seemed proud about that, you know. Hell, he even keeps track of the time and if the bowler breaks down before the allotted time, he RESETS the stopwatch and asks them to start all over again. However, the routine seemed pretty monotonous, so I asked him if there was any other drill. “Sometimes we also make these guys run 8 hours continuously on the treadmill and in the rare case of them having a knee injury, he make them slide on THAT outfield for three hours straight,” he said, pointing at a ground where the grass was indistinguishable from the practice pitches.

At 2.00 PM, all players had their feet up. No warm-ups, no drills, nothing. But suddenly, and I mean in a fraction of seconds, everyone’s on their feet, running for their lives and getting back to their positions. Hell, they are even warming up. I sprinted towards a cricketer to ask him what this was all about. “IT’S 2.15 PM. RAHUL (DRAVID) SIR IS COMING,” he said. And there he was - the man, the myth, the legend. At this point in time, everything is perfect, everything is organized. This was not the NCA I saw in the morning. This had the feel of a classroom that’s oh-so-quiet and perfect during external inspections. Calm as ever, Dravid takes a look at all the kids out there and gives a gleeful smile. “Proud of you lads, keep this going” he says, before going towards a batsman and helping him with his backlift. Oh poor Rahul. Five minutes later, he is gone. Poof. Vanished.  

I then had a chat with the security guard (who was now awake) and asked him why Dravid left the building so early, and why he was there for just 15 minutes. “This is what happens everyday. Rahul sir comes and visits the players for 15 minutes and he leaves. Things are serious here only for 15 minutes.”  Conspiracy theories then started to strike my head. Could it be a Ganguly vs Dravid feud? I mean, they were not the best of buddies during the good ol’ days and now, we are literally seeing a BCCI vs NCA fight right in front of our eyes. Could this be Dravid’s cunning way of ‘giving it back’ to the BCCI? Perhaps, who knows. 

I spent the next two hours, basically till 6.00 PM, doing absolutely nothing and then I figured that it was time to leave. Just when I was about to exit the gate, I’m stopped by this gigantic, intimidating figure. In an extremely aggressive tone, he tells me ‘You need to go back to THAT room out there, open the draw, take out the Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA), sign it and give it to me. That’s when I’ll allow you to leave.”  So I go to the room he pointed at, and as I open the draw to take out the NDA papers, I stumbled upon something that the NCA have ‘pretended’ to have lost all this while - documents which contain Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s injury reports. 

Did I sign the NDA? Well yes I did and that is exactly why I didn’t reveal the name of the physio or the players. So as I handed the paper to the guard and exited the gate, most of the players started leaving the facility too. In fact, everyone but Kamlesh Nagarkoti left the building. At this point of time, I was blank and all I could do was just book the cab back home.