da 888casino： The curtains came down on the South Zone Academy in Chennai after morethan 50 days of fun and hard work in equal proportions
Sankhya Krishnan23-Jun-2001The curtains came down on the South Zone Academy in Chennai after morethan 50 days of fun and hard work in equal proportions. It was one offive zonal academies inaugurated this season as part of the NationalCricket Academy’s bold new foray to bring quality infrastructure to awider cross-section of youngsters. Instead of an elite group of 20trainees at the NCA, the move has thrown open the window ofopportunity to about 120 aspirants with standard coaching techniquesintroduced across the board.A brief valedictory function was held at the MA Chidambaram Stadium onSaturday to mark the successful completion of the programme, which waslaunched on May 2. In his welcome address, the secretary of the TamilNadu Cricket Association Ashok Kumbhat suggested that the boys at theAcademy must consider themselves fortunate to be selected for such aspecialised and intensive training.The 20 youngsters, all in the Under-18 age group, were supervised by ateam of four coaches led by Syed Kirmani and also including J Abhiram,K Bharat Kumar (both former Ranji Trophy players) and CS Umapathy. TheChief Guest, A Vellayan, Director, Murugappa Group (marketing) said hewas pleased that the efforts of the Board of Control for Cricket inIndia have been directed towards training in a much more focused way.He pointed out that there is a direct co-relation between the amountof time and funds directed towards coaching and the standards of theIndian team.Chief coach Kirmani gave a brief report of the progress made hiswards. He noted that the group was evenly balanced, comprising eightbatsmen, five medium pacers, two spinners, two allrounders and threewicket keepers. Kirmani noted that the visits of Rodney Marsh, BrijeshPatel, TA Sekhar and VV Kumar to the Academy pepped up the lads andhelped them garner some useful advice. The former Indian wicket keepersaid it was a tough workout for the boys who had to put in strenuousefforts especially in the area of strength and endurance training,besides practising in humid and energy sapping conditions.But he observed that there was a qualitative improvement in theirstandards at the end of the programme. Kirmani noted that the holisticapproach incorporated the services of a physical trainer,physiotherapist, yoga expert, dietician, psychologist andvideographer, all roped in to provide critical inputs that would makethem well rounded players.The boys will now adjourn to Bangalore for the inter-academy one-daytournament from June 28 to July 2 with Vikram Kumar being namedcaptain of the South Zone team. Besides the five academies. a Combinedteam gathered from players across all the academies is also in thefray. Thirteen boys have been selected to the South Zone team andthree others for the Combined team. Kirmani had words of consolationfor those who did not make the cut, saying that they were as competentas the rest, and should not lose heart.The boys who passed out of the Academy’s portals were HT Sudhir Rao,Vinay Uthappa, Stuart Binny, Chetan Williams, Senthil Kumar and SteveLazarus (all Karnataka), ASK Varma, K Srinivasa Rao, PAVN Raju, GShankar Rao and Nalin Reddy (all from Andhra), T Suman and AT Rayudu(Hyderabad), Vikram Kumar, Vishal Kudawla and DT Kumaran (Tamil Nadu),Sreesanth, Vincent Gomes and Mousam Nathani (Kerala) and Sher BahadurYadav (Goa).Three outstanding trainees were chosen from amongst the lot, VikramKumar, Rayudu and Vinay Uthappa, who were gifted with Hercules MTBThriller bicycles. Rayudu of course is the opening batsman who createdripples during last year’s Under-15 World Cup in England, making acentury in the final against West Indies. But given that the man whocalled the shots at the Academy was arguably India’s best wicketkeeper, it was perhaps no surprise that the other two, Vikram Kumarand Vinay Uthappa, were fellow members of the tribe.