Southampton: Virat Kohli is the quintessential “teacher’s delight” but it is injury-prone Mohammed Shami, in his current fit avatar, that India’s strength and conditioning coach Shankar Basu considers his biggest achievement since joining the team.
Basu’s satisfaction comes from making a fitness freak out of an injury-prone Shami or even a Kedar Jadhav, who till 31-32, didn’t do any proper fitness training.
“Virat is any teacher’s de-light. His biggest attribute is that he is ready to do boring stuff every single day of the year.
He knows his body and if he is training, he will have 100 questions with regards to routines. Once he gets the answers, he follows them with all sincerity,” Basu said.
A new and improved Shami didn’t miss a single Test match last season due to injury and maintained his intensity throughout. “And come to think of it, he failed a fitness test last year and also had some issues in his personal life. Once he came back, he started training with a vengeance. I had told Shami that there is no point of training hard for 20 days,” he recalled.
“You have to train consistently. Now training is his lifestyle. Look at how his pace never drops even in the final test of a five-game series,” Basu said.
Basu then gave a sneak peek into Shami’s lifestyle that has gone for a complete overhaul. “He is a meat eater but now he has cut down on his junk food. He is probably the first example in this Indian team who has started the concept of intermittent fasting. “He doesn’t eat a lot during the first half of the day but eats well during the second half of the day. He has reduced his fat percentage,” said Basu.
Another player who has shown remarkable improvement is Jasprit Bumrah. Basu praised him for raising the bar to an altogether different level. “Bumrah wasn’t one of the fittest guys when he came into the team. Now he is in the top bracket due to hard work, proper diet, good sleeping pattern.”
