Dambulla August 15:
            Faced with a litany of injury worries and a barrage of constant cricket heading into the World Cup, Team India's support staff is inculcating newer fitness methodologies, intended to keep players physically agile and mentally fresh.
This new approach of self-organized learning based on personal initiative, also includes the development of an amenable dressing-room atmosphere, something recently praised by VVS Laxman as the best ambience he has worked in.
The enhanced and strict emphasis on fitness is also intended to work as a natural culling process, with players who cut corners with their routines being found out. "The starting point of this new pathway," said India's first mental conditioning coach Padd Upton, "involves awareness and self-appraisal. In India fitness isn't in the culture. If you're training because somebody tells you to, it's difficult. We are trying to encourage players to make their own decisions so we can assist them with their thinking as we train. It's a system of gaining awareness and overcoming instincts."
The attempt came about, said Upton, when he and coach Gary Kirsten realized most players' fitness schedules went awry the moment they left the national set-up, or they discovered that doing a player's thinking for him wasn't helping in match situations. Being sensitive to cultural conditioning was the biggest challenge for the duo. The new methods are also intended to help important players like Yuvraj Singh, currently struggling with fitness issues and lack of form, to revitalize themselves.
Asked about the back-up staff's views on Yuvraj, Upton said, "The mental challenges come when you get injured, get dropped or have a low run of form. You go through a natural process of disappointment. We're teaching these players to move through that phase quickly and regain the mental, physical and technical condition necessary to be a serious competitor. How strongly an individual can come back is a test of character."
This is where mental conditioning, a rarely-understood terminology, comes in. Upton explained: "It involves the attitude you adopt to fitness and not the knowledge. Traditionally coaches in cricket do the thinking for the player. Yet when you cross the ropes you must think for yourself. It all starts with coming out of a happy dressing room, which we have worked hard at. Gary (Kirsten) communicates more with the players and is honest with them. Younger players realise this is a comfortable place and if they express concerns there will be no repercussions."
The younger lot, though, presents a newer set of challenges. "The younger generation is different, they would rather watch a DVD than read a book, rather play T20 than Tests, and we need to move with those changes," said Upton, "Yet some principles like discipline and preparation are constants. If the youngsters will take short cuts, that's their choice. Some youngsters have come to learn and understand, like Suresh Raina. He goes about his business the right way. He does the right stuff. A guy like that will prevail."
The confidence in Raina seems to have borne fruit. How the others, seniors and junior alike, have embraced the new philosophy will only become clear only during India's World Cups campaign.