There was a time when cricket was a leisurely sport played by amateurs with other regular jobs. Over a century has passed and the favourite British summer pastime has evolved into one of the most high-profile jobs in itself. A modern professional cricketer’s life revolves around airports, hotels, cricket grounds, gym and nets. The stakes are high, the rewards substantial and the competition intense. So is the constant pressure and compulsion to not only attain the highest level of skill and fitness but to also improve all the time. To keep up with these extremely high standards, today’s professional cricketer needs the very best scientific, technological and physical aid at his disposal. This is where the physiotherapists and sport science experts become crucial to a sportsman’s success. In a bid to give the best support to India’s international cricketers, the BCCI have recently acquired the services of Patrick Farhart as Team India’s physiotherapist. Farhart is one of the most sought after names in his field. A Master of Sports Physiotherapy, Farhart has worked with the Australian cricket team, the New South Wales team and Hampshire. He has also been part of the Kings XI Punjab team in the Indian Premier League for the last eight years. Besides cricket, Farhart has worked with Australian Football and Rugby League players. The Australia-based physiotherapist joined the Indian Cricket team ahead of their recent Test series in Sri Lanka, which began his two-year contract with the BCCI. After his first assignment with Team India, we, at BCCI.TV, spoke to him about his long-term plan to keep the Indian cricketers battle ready.

How was your first experience with Team India? It was busy – a little busier than I expected. I arrived in Chennai a day before we left for Sri Lanka. Apart from work, it was a very good experience with the team. They are an excellent management team to work with. The coaching staff, the support staff and the players are all wonderful to work with. It was also great to see the team win an overseas Test series after quite a while. It was nice to be a part of that as well. So, overall, the whole experience was very positive and busy.

Did it make it easier for you with India given you have worked with Indian players at KXIP? It definitely did help because dietary habits, lifestyle, genetics and body structures here are very different to what we see in the western countries. There has been a lot of research and studies done on the risk factors with regards to injuries to cricketers in South Africa, England and Australia and those findings do not necessarily hold true for Indian players. There are a lot of things we need do in India to investigate and establish effective systems for monitoring these players’ fitness based on their training and playing routines, and their bodies’ responses to these routines. Once we find out what risk factors predispose these guys to injuries, we can put in place strategies and prevention techniques to reduce injury. So, while it did help having worked with the Indian players at KXIP, I think we have only really scratched the surface and there are lots of things all of us as a management team within the BCCI can do to get more answers.

What are the major differences you have noticed with the Indian cricketers in that regards as compared to players from other countries? It is interesting because even within the Indian team there are differences between the South Indian and North Indian boys. Genetically and structurally they are very different. For instance, the Punjabi boys are strongly built but most of them have very flat feet. Indian players tend to have different ranges of hip, shoulder and trunk motion in comparison to players in England and Australia. One of the things we need to do is to start measuring these things and find out how differently the players from various regions of India move from each other and from other players around the world. So, to be able to identify the exact differences and then make recommendations on changing these to lower injury risk, we need to have a look at the data and watch the guys closely over a period of time.

Can you give me an insight into how differently you work with rugby players, footballers and cricketers?

I have found cricketers a little easier to deal with in comparison to rugby and football players because their expectations are a little more realistic with regards to returning from injuries and the process they need to go through for getting back on the park. It is not footballers’ or rugby players’ fault because when you’re playing a contact sport and you’re playing for 25 weeks at a stretch, a certain portion of the management are eager for them to be patched up and just get back out there. It is not as much like that with cricketers. The fitness standards of the Indian players have improved a lot over the last few years. What was your first impression of them as the team’s physiotherapist?

You are right, the standards have improved greatly. I have seen that during my eight years in the IPL with KXIP. I think a lot of the Indian players have seen the amount of work that some of the young overseas players put into their fitness and learned from that. It has been a very powerful stimulus for many young Indian cricketers in how they think about their fitness and injury prevention. That is a brilliant and very positive thing to see. What impressed me about the Indian boys on the Sri Lankan tour was their commitment towards training and fitness. It is very good, sometimes even too good. We have to push them out of the gym at times. What we need is not so much getting them to do the work but also getting them to know when to back off and understand when they need to rest and recover. The vast majority of the 15-16 players I worked with on the tour have very high standards of fitness and they compare very well with guys from other countries.

Based on your first experience with the team, what are the major improvements you want to bring about in these players’ fitness levels over the next year? Well, the first thing I would like to see is less lower limb muscle strain injuries. I would like to see less hamstring, soft tissue and quadriceps muscle injuries because that hit me straight in the face when I arrived. We are already putting in place some strategies to reduce that. In the long-term I would like to bring in a system where the players take more responsibility and stay in tune with the processes of maintaining their fitness levels and reducing injuries that we come up with. That is my dream for the next year – to have a system up and running where the players follow the strategies that we have for injury prevention and performance maximization. That would include them using certain technology-based measurements for training and looking for how their body responds to training and match loads. Would the players following these methods and plans you chalk out for them during the off-season also be a crucial factor? Definitely. We are in the process of chalking out off-season plans for each player. For that, the ideal situation would be that when the players are not with us in the Indian team setup, they are able to replicate their programmes at the state and academy level, or wherever they are. The physiotherapist and physical trainer have to be in sync with each other in terms of understanding the players’ physical requirements and their bodies. Have you struck a good rapport in that regards with Mr. Shankar Basu (Team India’s new physical trainer)? The relationship between Basu and I is very interesting. We had some different ideas for the players in regards with how things have been done in the past and how we want to move forward. I have had very fruitful conversations with Basu and our masseur, Arun Kanade, and we think of ourselves as a separate team within the team. All of us are each other’s eyes and ears. It is very important for us to have a good rapport and we have developed that. The three of us need to have very open, honest and frequent communication as to where we see the players’ status with regard to recovery, fitness and injury.

You mentioned how the injuries within the team kept you busy throughout the Sri Lanka series. How do you manage situations where a player gets injured during a match and has to continue to play with the niggle?

Managing this aspect is a difficult thing. It is probably the hardest part of my job. The first thing to do is not take it personally. Don’t get too upset when things don’t go as you planned and don’t get too elated when your decisions do come off well. You have to think very clearly. It’s about being open and honest with the players and coaching staff and communicating with them in a very clear manner the risks that are involved if they choose to play on. You have to sit with the player and list out the risks and benefits of decisions that are made. For instance, Shikhar injured his hand during the first Test. It was interesting because we had x-rays done that evening and they showed nothing. Even in the MRI nothing showed up. We needed to get the CT scan done to finally find the crack. It is one of those things that cricketers often have to go through once they are in a game because there are no substitutes in cricket. So, you weigh up all the pros and cons and try to manage these situations in the best way possible without causing any long-term damage.

The individual’s endurance level also matters here, doesn’t it? Shikhar, for instance, batted with an injured hand in the Brisbane Test last year and scored 81. You know he has done it before and hence can manage it. Yes, that’s right. Call it endurance level or call it mental toughness, it matters. There are very few players, particularly the fast bowlers, who walk on to the park 100 per cent fit. For a majority of them it is about managing a small niggle prior to the game. But when things happen during a match, it is a difficult thing to do. You mention the fast bowlers. Is managing their bodies more challenging than the others? Yes, definitely. There are smart ways of improving and maintaining the strength for the fast bowlers. I have only looked at four Indian fast bowlers closely so far, during the Sri Lanka series. One of the things we need to do is to examine closely over a long period of time how these guys train, how they recover from training and matches, and how training and matches affect their bowling techniques and bowling speeds. Once we monitor these things over a period, we will have a better idea on how to best form a plan for them. Different bowlers use different patterns of body movements to produce speed. If you give one fast bowler a certain regime to improve his strength and power, it may help him, but the same regime may not suit another pacer and might even slow him down. You have to treat every player individually. At some point we may be able to categorize players into different groups and get them to train similarly. But ideally we want to watch them for a period of time and then start making those decisions. To some extent it is also about the individual understanding his own body, isn’t it? Unfortunately if you are a fast bowler, there are some things that you can only learn from your experiences with pain and injuries – what niggles you can and cannot play with. Most fast bowlers struggle with that until they are 22-23, enjoy a golden period for the next eight years or so and then begin to wear down once they get to their early to mid 30s. We need to see the history of each fast bowler, monitor him, gather the data, analyze it and then come up with a programme. It is a long process and a challenging task. We have already begun this process and in the long run we know it will produce positive results.