The Board of Control for Cricket in India, BCCI, appears to have decided to pull in new support staff for the Indian Cricket team. Accordingly, three new members were handed a one-year contract to join the Indian Cricket team as the support staff, starting from the next month’s Srilanka tour.
Australia’s Patrick Farhart will join as the physiotherapist while Shankar Basu and Arun Kanade will come on board as strength and conditioning expert and masseur, respectively. kanade, has already assumed the responsibilities in Zimbabwe, this month. The remaining two are expected to join the team ten days before the start of the first test on August 12th. Hence, the duo will get enough time to get acquainted with the players.
Farhart, an Australian physio-therapist with almost three decades of professional experience, comes in place of Nitin Patel who resigned due to personal reasons. Besides working for several Rugby and Football teams, Farhart has also worked for the Hampshire and New South Wales teams of Australia. He is also the physio-therapist for the IPL franchisee Kings IX Punjabs.
Basu has been appointed as the trainer for the India squad, as the previous trainer VP Sudarshan preferred to be stationed at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, the ESPN cricinfo reports.
Kanade, meanwhile, has to step into the big shoes of Ramesh Mane, the first full-time masseur of the Indian team. Mane was an integral part of the India entourage for the last decade and was popular among players. BCCI is understood to have roped in Kanade to create a substitute for an ageing Mane.