From Guwahati to Pune, the Indian cricket team has already covered a distance of nearly 8,000 km and still has a substantial route to cover for their remaining round-robin matches in the ongoing 2023 World Cup. Rohit Sharma-led unit is the only team in the World Cup which is not playing more than one game at a venue and will be travelling the length and breadth of the country during the multi-nation event.
To keep the travel fatigue at bay and minimise burnout due to the exhaustive schedule, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has ensured private charters and only post-lunch departures the day after the match for the Men in Blue.
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“The team is flying on private charters. It’s a long World Cup and keeping the travel schedule in mind, we have ensured to have only charters. The timings of the flights also have been cautiously kept around the lunchtime after the match,” says a BCCI official.
There are some alterations when it comes to “tricky sectors” like Guwahati or Dharamsala.
“There are some changes – say a via private charter – when it comes to tricky destinations like Guwahati or Dharamsala but mostly charters are direct,” adds the official.
Shubman Gill was the only exception to this routine as the batter took a commercial evening flight from Chennai, where he was recovering from dengue, to Ahmedabad. He stayed back in Chennai while the rest of his teammates travelled to Delhi for the match vs Afghanistan.
The 24-year-old reached Ahmedabad late in the evening on October 11 while his team members reached the city as per the routine afternoon departure on October 12, a day after the Afghanistan fixture.
Ahead of all their matches, there has been low attendance in the nets on the eve of the fixtures. Two days before the game, packed houses have been seen. It was a full house, minus sick Gill, in Chennai two days prior to the game and a high-intensity open nets session took place in Pune on October 17 too. Between matches – India vs Afghanistan and India vs Pakistan – where there isn’t a substantial gap, the players have taken it easy.
Before the Afghanistan fixture, the bowlers relaxed in the team hotel and only Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer, Shardul Thakur, Ravindra Jadeja, and Suryakumar Yadav were the few players who were present and before the Pakistan game too, Shami was the only frontline seamer who bowled at full tilt. He had R Ashwin for bowling company but most of the heavy lifting was done by the side-armers and net bowlers.
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“The eve of the match is mostly an optional session, so the team tends to take it easy on that day. Rest, all sessions are conducted with the advice of the medical team. The workload of every individual is taken into account before those sessions. So again, that depends on individual to individual and how their body feels on a given day,” informs the BCCI official.
Not just Team India, but private charters for other teams too.
Keeping the extensive travel schedule in mind, the BCCI, hosts of the World Cup, have ensured private charters for all participating teams. It was the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) responsibility to get the teams to the venue of their warm-up fixture and the BCCI took over then.
“It’s not just the Indian team, we are arranging private charters for other teams too. It was ICC’s responsibility to get the team to their warm-up venue – say Guwahati or Hyderabad or wherever. From there on, we took charge and ensured seamless travel for other teams as well. Schedule of the charter is as per the requirements of the respective teams but our job is to ensure they get a private charter,” says the official.
Miles to go, and even more if they make it to the semis, and staying fresh is going to be of utmost importance for the Indian cricket team.
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