Cramped calendar hampers mental preparation: Dhoni

[yoda]

Players like the IPL. If they didn't, they wouldn't be playing in it. Just ask Ganguly if the players want to play in the IPL or not. :winky:

[Ram]

Why cant any cricketer say anything that is even borderline complaint/critique of the system? Almost unfailingly, he is labeled as a whiner and receives a massive amount of stick from certain ‘fans..’ MSD is right – its but natural to expect the players to slack off a little bit for these warm-ups. As much as we’d like to think all our players are consummate professionals who give it their very best every single time they step on to the field in Indian colors, the fact of the matter is, not everyone has the motivation and mental discipline of a Tenduklar or a Kumble. But seriously, compared to some of the other professional sports, cricketers actually have it pretty easy. Most NBA players play close to a 100 games in a span of 250-270 days. That’s a game every two and half days. Plus, not only is NBA a more strenuous sport, the training regime of all basketball players is probably 10 times more demanding than a typical cricketer’s. Most NBA players train a good 4-5 hours on non-playing days. That is probably what most Indian cricketers clock in a week. And there’s the question of flying coast-to-coast almost every other day. Many basketball games are scheduled back-to-back. For those games, the players arrive in the respective city only around 4 am that morning and have to get ready for a 7 pm game that evening. If there’s one group of cricketers who have genuine reasons to complain, it’s the fast bowlers. Its probably one of the most high injury risk activity a sportsman can possibly do. They’re the ones that have to be nurtured in a cotton wool. For every body else, there’s no excuse, at least physical fitness wise.

[jaggadaku]

BCCI's Rajiv Shukla has scoffed at M's remarks and says that "BCCI has a very CLEAR policy about players feeling the stress of tight schedules' date= in which the players can take rest whenever they like. Nobody is FORCING them to take part in IPL and Chumpions League.." :hehe:

:cantstop: I don't know how many times he has repeated the same words

[jhakati]

Dhoni isn't talking about international matches here. If I read it correctly, he's talking about the mental preparation for the warm up game(s). "all of a sudden you hear there's a warm-up game, it's a very difficult scenario to mentally prepare yourself for the game which really reflected on the field." For such games, teams do take it easy and don't go at full throttle, but like always our media has picked one part of a sentence and made a screaming headline out of it.

i think ur right, people on here can be pretty stupid:eyedance:

[Sid]

It's about mental preparation, not fatigue: Dhoni Chennai, Feb 15, (IANS) : Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni Tuesday clarified that he was not referring to any cricketing fatigue factor per se in the run-up to the World Cup, but rather to the mental preparations required for a warm-up game, something he was not used to. “It is not fatigue factor but about mental preparation for a warm-up game. It is difficult to prepare like you do for a regular match. I have not played warm-up matches even during the start of my career at school or district level, and all of a sudden, you have to prepare for a warm-up game,†he said in the course of a media interaction on the eve of India's second warm-up game against New Zealand here. A section of the media had interpreted Dhoni’s statements on warm-up matches in reference to the game against Australia in Bangalore Sunday that the players had to deal with fatigue factor in view of “too much cricketâ€. Looking ahead to Wednesday’s warm-up game against New Zealand, Dhoni said with India scheduled to play their opening World Cup against Bangladesh in Dhaka on February 19, his players needed to show more intensity. “We need to pick up a bit of intensity on the field. We will be progressing to the World Cup games, this being the last warm up match,†he said. Dhoni admitted that the middle-order collapse in the Bangalore game did weigh on his mind, but pointed out that the spinners turned the match around as the Aussies collapsed in a heap chasing 215. “I think we needed a partnership in the middle, which didn’t really happen for us. That was one of the reasons we were not able to score big. “The lower order partnership of 49-odd run partnership (between Yusuf Pathan and Ravichandran Ashwin) helped us really well. At the end of the day, we didn’t really have a par score on the board as we made 214. But the spinners really bowled well. They used the conditions well and we won by 30-odd runs,†he said. Dhoni agreed that there were still a couple of spots up for grabs in the playing eleven, but there was a lot of competition for these positions and that in turn, provided him with more options. “Most of the players are doing well which means that for the one or two spots we are talking about you have one or two contenders trying to grab the place. “It is good for the side as we have got more options and more the options the better it is. The selection depends on the condition of wicket for each game and as to how we read the wicket. It is really good that everyone is shaping well for the tournament,†said Dhoni. On the difference between a net session and a warm-up game, the captain said the match provided an opportunity to try out bowling and batting options. “The heart rate goes up a bit in a practice game, but you still want to score runs. You can try the bowling variations and the batting options. In the net session you don’t get to know whether an outside edge carries to the slip or goes to the boundary,†he said. Dhoni reiterated that Zaheer Khan was only suffering from a “very mild groin strain†and it was not a matter of concern, but he wanted to preserve the new ball bowler for the World Cup rather than risk aggravating the injury by playing him in the warm-up game. As such, the skipper ruled out Zaheer playing the warm-up match against the Kiwis on the morrow, but confirmed that Sachin Tendulkar would open the innings, as usual. “As I have already said, it is a very mild groin strain and nothing to worry. It is just that we can give him (Zaheer) rest. Of course, Sachin will play tomorrow,†he said. Looking ahead to the World Cup opener against Bangladesh, Dhoni said much would depend on the behaviour of the pitch in Dhaka. “We have to see whether dew factor will be there or not. Last time when we toured Bangladesh it was in January and there was lot of dew. But now it is February. We have to see whether dew will be there. Accordingly we have to pick our best 11,†he said. On the New Zealand team, Dhoni said the Kiwis were known for their collective effort and did not depend on a single player. “New Zealand have always been a very contributive side and they always don’t depend on any one particular batsman or a bowler to win the game. They are a very talented side,†he said.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/137899/its-mental-preparation-not-fatigue.html

[Gunner_Mania]

Most NBA players play close to a 100 games in a span of 250-270 days. That’s a game every two and half days. Plus' date=' not only is NBA a more strenuous sport, the training regime of all basketball players is probably 10 times more demanding than a typical cricketer’s. Most NBA players train a good 4-5 hours on non-playing days. That is probably what most Indian cricketers clock in a week. And there’s the question of flying coast-to-coast almost every other day. Many basketball games are scheduled back-to-back. For those games, the players arrive in the respective city only around 4 am that morning and have to get ready for a 7 pm game that evening. .[/quote'] You can't be serious Morris? NBA is more strenous than playing 5 days on a stretch or even playing an International ODI away from home in some phoren land where games come thinck and fast every 3 rd day and then travel that involves it? Lets just take Dhoni in the last 12 months - 11 tests - 55 days of cricket / 18 ODIs - 18 days 6 T20I - that is over 79 days of cricket not including the IPL & CL or the travelling across the world and you think the NBA is more strenous than this. You must be having a laugh.

[Roshanrocks]

unbelievable.... all he said was that it was difficult to mentally prepare for a warm up game, and here we have peeps creating a mountain of a molehill.....

[achilles]

Sit out of the IPL if that helps

[Ram]

You can't be serious Morris? NBA is more strenous than playing 5 days on a stretch or even playing an International ODI away from home in some phoren land where games come thinck and fast every 3 rd day and then travel that involves it? Lets just take Dhoni in the last 12 months - 11 tests - 55 days of cricket / 18 ODIs - 18 days 6 T20I - that is over 79 days of cricket not including the IPL & CL or the travelling across the world and you think the NBA is more strenous than this. You must be having a laugh.

I am absolutely serious. I don’t know if you have played basketball, but I do. I have played cricket as well and I can tell with no qualms whatsoever that cricket is no match for basketball in terms of physical exhaustion. I have played club-level, amateur class, 25 overs/side cricket games and many of them, I have gone through the entire game without breaking a sweat, quite literally. But trust me, in terms of demands on stamina/energy, basketball is on a completely different level. I hate to admit this in public, but I cannot last more 20 mins of full court basketball, I just cant. It is THAT tiring. I need a 5-10 minute break before I can enter back into the court. The NBA players play 2 HOURS a night, almost every other night. I cannot even begin to imagine how tiring that would be. Plus, you cannot draw a direct one-on-one comparison between the number of days between the two sports. It doesn’t matter how many ‘days’ the record books say I played, what matter is how much energy I expended, playing those games And I can safely say, being a medium-fast bowler, that bowling a 4-5 overs in a spell or 8-10 overs a day is no match for 20 minutes of full court basketball. It doesn’t even come close. There have been days when I literally had to carried off the basketball court due to sheer exhaustion. I have played cricket in 110 deg, 85% humidity Chennai heat for 6-7 hours a day and I have never come close to that. And yes, the cricketer’s schedules are way more player friendly that the NBA players’. Cricketers rarely ever play games on every other day, in basketball, that is pretty much the norm. Cricketers NEVER play games on consecutive days, it happens frequently in basketball. How many times have you heard about cricketers arriving at 4 am in the morning in their playing venue, get a quick 6 hour sleep, assemble at 3 pm in the afternoon for a training session and get ready for a 7 pm game? NEVER! NBA players often do that. And again, you’re discounting the training aspect of the whole thing. Cricket, or atleast disciplines of it, is extremely training friendly. You don’t even have to train at all, to be a good batsmen. How many out of shape cricketers have seen till now and continue to see till today? But you look at any basketball game and let me know if you even one, just one player whose whose body fat % is above 16%. Those guys have phenomenal training regimes that will make some our cricketers run like their clothes were on fire. Most NBA players train for 5-6 hours/day on non-playing days, and clock up 2-3 hours during playing days. I can think of cricketers who clock as much in a month. Remember how Andrew Symonds said in a cricinfo interview that he felt most young Indian cricketers were lazy and were averse to intense training? With that kind of mentality, they wouldn’t even last in the NBA D-league ( which is like the tier-II league), let alone qualify to play in the league itself.

[The Outsider]

^ It's stupid to compare the physical aspects required to be good in cricket and basketball. Just as squash and mountaineering emphasize on vastly different physical attributes.

[Ram]

^ It's stupid to compare the physical aspects required to be good in cricket and basketball. Just as squash and mountaineering emphasize on vastly different physical attributes.

Duh..! I am not comparing chess and bull-fighting. I think cricket and basketball are two comparable sports, especially given their similar schedules and having played both of them. Plus, I have already added a caveat saying that I am leaving out fast bowlers from my comparison because I understand that the demands placed on a player’s body due to fast bowling is very unique. My only contention is that 75% of professional cricketers (batsmen, spinners, medium pacers) have little to no excuse in terms of fitness (again, I am staying away from the mental side of things).

[vvvslaxman]

Morris, cricket is a mentally draining game. Dhoni was not talking about physical pain. NBA can at best be compared with IPL which our players would happily play all year. You should compare cricketers from Australia instead of NBA players. I know for a fact Hayden always used to push himself to the limit when it came to fitness training.

[pensionplan]

^ It's stupid to compare the physical aspects required to be good in cricket and basketball. Just as squash and mountaineering emphasize on vastly different physical attributes.

Yeah no point comparing given each sport demands its own skill set and physical attributes. Having said that I have no qualms in admitting pound for pound basketball NBA style has some of the the best athletes in the world if not the very best. The quintessential athlete that one envisions in his or her mind when they think of the term athlete. They are freak in nature to say the least with loads of stamina. Of course it is not just limited to NBA alone though percentage wise they perhaps have the most of any sport I can think of. Sprint athletes, Olympic level swimmers, gymnasts, NFL(Receivers, Running backs, Corner backs, lean mean Linebackers) are some others that readily come to mind as well when thinks of well cut out athletes.

[The Outsider]

There is no such thing as the quintessential athlete. The sherpas would outdo these so called quintessential athletes in things like rock climbing and mountaineering at any time.

[vvvslaxman]

Swimming is far more physically demanding sport than Basketball. I am sure our cricketers play more than one sports. Mostly football where they usually end up hurting themselves. They might opt for swimming if they had not already.

[yoda]

unbelievable.... all he said was that it was difficult to mentally prepare for a warm up game, and here we have peeps creating a mountain of a molehill.....

If they can't even mentally prepare for a warm up game due to all the schedule which has left them all exhausted, he doesn't exactly exude the confidence necessary that the team will be able to switch gears for the real games, does he? Yes, everyone heard/read that he was referring to a warm up game, which frankly no one cares about. What people are concerned about is the captain talking about cramped schedule right when the real games of the world cup are about to begin.

[ravishingravi]

If they can't even mentally prepare for a warm up game due to all the schedule which has left them all exhausted' date= he doesn't exactly exude the confidence necessary that the team will be able to switch gears for the real games, does he? Yes, everyone heard/read that he was referring to a warm up game, which frankly no one cares about. What people are concerned about is the captain talking about cramped schedule right when the real games of the world cup are about to begin.

^Exactly.

[Zelig]

Move this to losers thread :beee:

[fineleg]

These guys dont complain when IPL is on. I.Pu.L FTW! :bow:

[vvvslaxman]

Dhoni being a tactician wants to deflect the pressure away with this statement. Do you honestly think he doesn't want to win a world cup. He got T20 win, CL win, IPL win, many "first" series wins. He has his own operating methods. Yes his team played like sh** in the last T20 cup. But you have to remember those teams had "R jadeja" a bad omen. We don't have him anymore. Things will only get better.