In an older post, I had talked about the importance of taking a professional approach to the training of the squad. It appears that now that Geoff Lawson has some ideas, after being let go as coach.
He speaks the importance of having a team psychologist to help the players. It can't hurt. The shenanigans of Shoaib Akhtar (I'm injured, I'll hit team mates with a bat), the travails of Mohammad Asif (steroids or opium, name your poison), and even the hare brained things Mohammad Yousuf (ICL or IPL? Should I see or should I pee) and Younis Khan (Don't make me captain, PLEASE CAN I BE CAPTAIN!) have been upto all scream for some kind of psychological intervention. Whether its egos run rampant, or just confusion after coming face to face with the trappings of success in sports, the happenings of the last two years speak to the importance of some kind of help for the players. Even after the sudden and shocking death of Bob Woolmer, there was no help for the players. I can see for Geoff Lawson is coming from. Trainers, physios, position specific coaches and team counselors are a must in the modern game.
Showing posts with label medical board. Show all posts
Showing posts with label medical board. Show all posts
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Pakistan and Foreign Coaches
Rashid Latif makes some interesting points about how the practices of foreign coaches may not be suitable to the needs of subcontinental players. While, in a way it does seem a tad illogical to me, but then this image of Kamran Akmal pops up: doing leg raises with his flip-flop chappals on. Maybe Rashid Latif has a point?
I still continue to feel that aren't players just players? Maybe the Pakistani players are a little bit behind in the fitness game when they start in professional cricket, but do they really have different needs? I'll have to think about that.
I still continue to feel that aren't players just players? Maybe the Pakistani players are a little bit behind in the fitness game when they start in professional cricket, but do they really have different needs? I'll have to think about that.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Grant Compton: Good Riddance
So, as all things end, so do contracts for trainers. Specially for trainers who feel "entitled to renegotiate my contract". Contracts should definitely end for trainers who think "I was worth a little bit more after the time I have been here".
Grant Compton, Pakistan's trainer for the past two years, feels somewhat slighted by the PCB because they don't think he is worth a raise and worth added benefits to his contract. Now, I am not the PCB's biggest fan, never have been, probably never will be, but I can't fault them here. What has happened to the overall fitness of the Pakistani players over the past two years? There has been not one iota of difference. For all of Compton's new fangled, modern methods, can one really honestly say that Pakistani players are fitter today? If anything, Inzamam is more rotund, Shoaib Akhtar is more fragile, and players like Shabbir, Naved and Umar Gul have been declared fit and not fit on whimsical fitness tests, which if Compton was a competent physio would never have come to pass.
Now, what this says about Bob Woolmer's future, is the more interesting question. I think it is a foregone conclusion that Woolmer will be moving on somewhere else after the World Cup is done, whether it is England or somewhere else. I think his act has run its course, for all its achievements in Pakistan.
Technorati Tags: pakistan, pakistan cricket board, cricket, bob woolmer, fitness
Grant Compton, Pakistan's trainer for the past two years, feels somewhat slighted by the PCB because they don't think he is worth a raise and worth added benefits to his contract. Now, I am not the PCB's biggest fan, never have been, probably never will be, but I can't fault them here. What has happened to the overall fitness of the Pakistani players over the past two years? There has been not one iota of difference. For all of Compton's new fangled, modern methods, can one really honestly say that Pakistani players are fitter today? If anything, Inzamam is more rotund, Shoaib Akhtar is more fragile, and players like Shabbir, Naved and Umar Gul have been declared fit and not fit on whimsical fitness tests, which if Compton was a competent physio would never have come to pass.
Now, what this says about Bob Woolmer's future, is the more interesting question. I think it is a foregone conclusion that Woolmer will be moving on somewhere else after the World Cup is done, whether it is England or somewhere else. I think his act has run its course, for all its achievements in Pakistan.
Technorati Tags: pakistan, pakistan cricket board, cricket, bob woolmer, fitness
Monday, February 05, 2007
Shabbir Ahmed injured too
When I wrote a while ago about Pakistan's medical nightmares, I had thought that things already were as bad as they were going to get. I didn't realize that things could sink even more. Shabbir Ahmed, who two weeks ago was injured, was then pronounced fit and put on a plane to South Africa, pulled a groin after just 4 Twenty20 overs. And now, its bad enough that it won't improve over the next week, so he's going home. Pakistan's medical board, along with their physios who check fitness are a JOKE. First they send Umar Gul and Shoaib Malik, while injured to South Africa, play the injured, not-injured game with Shoaib Akhtar, and now again with Shabbir Ahmed. What a crock.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Cricket Fitness Tests
In a previous post, I had commented on the inability of the Pakistani squad to assure the fitness of their players. Enter into evidence the fast and furious injuries to Shoaib Akhtar, Shoaib Malik, Umar Gul and now Shabbir Ahmed.
Here are a few profiles of what fitness in cricket entails. If one checks out www.fitness4cricket.com, there is a nice profile of the seven tests which can be used to check for cricket fitness, but it also speaks about the baseline tests and fitness profiles which every cricketer should go through. Now one could concede that most of these tests are about professional, club level cricket in England and Australia, but if it can apply there, it sure as heck can apply to the demanding, and intense world of international cricket. Can we know for sure if the Pakistani players are being made to work through the basic tests, and then are these tests being used to judge and gauge fitness, or is fitness like most things Pakistani based on what someone had to eat that morning? Not really sure.
Here are a few profiles of what fitness in cricket entails. If one checks out www.fitness4cricket.com, there is a nice profile of the seven tests which can be used to check for cricket fitness, but it also speaks about the baseline tests and fitness profiles which every cricketer should go through. Now one could concede that most of these tests are about professional, club level cricket in England and Australia, but if it can apply there, it sure as heck can apply to the demanding, and intense world of international cricket. Can we know for sure if the Pakistani players are being made to work through the basic tests, and then are these tests being used to judge and gauge fitness, or is fitness like most things Pakistani based on what someone had to eat that morning? Not really sure.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Pakistan's Cricket's Medical Nightmares
As a physician, there have been multiple times that I have shaken my head whenever Pakistan's injury woes have cropped up. Over the past few years, it has been the same list of injuries: Shoaib Malik's ankle, Umar Gul's back, Shoaib Akhtar's foot or hamstring or knee, Inzamam's back and on and on and on. Either its the same injury recurring multiple ways, or it is injuries which can be clearly be blamed on poor preparation (hamstring's or groin strain's).
My intuitive feelings about the situation often lead me to conclude that perhaps it was just Compton the team physio, and Bob Woolmer who had to make the majority of these decisions, and that is what is the problem here. I must say, in my mind, Shoaib Akhtar's continuous solicitation of outside opinions did push me towards thinking that this was a ship with no captain.
Then, I read Kamran Abbasi's blog from the 24th, and then had to begin doing some research, because according to his estimation there must be atleast ten physicians involved with the whole PCB framework. Well, first of all, it took me forever to find out who is involved with this so - called medical board of inquiry. It took me even some time to find a picture of the chair of the medical board of inquiry, Dr. Sohail Saleem. And it was after Googling, Yahooing and MSN Search engining that I finally came across an article in The News from 2005, which listed the constituents of the Pakistan Cricket Board's medical inquiry committe, with its visiting consultants:
"The permanent faculty of the medical commission comprises Dr Sohail
Saleem (coordinator medical commission), Murray Stevenson (Biokineticist),
Darryn Lifson (physiotherapist) and Grant Compton (trainer).
The members of the Visiting Faculty of the medical commission are Dr Abdul
Wajid (consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon —Agha Khan Hospital Karachi),
Dr Waqar Farooqi (consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon —Shalimar Hospital,
Lahore), Dr Meesaq Rizvi (Sports Physician —Shapes Health Studio, Lahore)
and Dr Azhar Turab (consultant radiologist - Shaukat Khanum Hospital, Lahore)."
A fine collection of specialists by any definition, who appear to all have the proper credentials. Yet, given their performance over the past few years, specially with the drugs/doping fiasco just a few months ago, one would have thought that they would all have gotten thrown out on their proverbial and perhaps even literal tush! Yet, here they are are, making a complete mosh of teh Shoaib Akhtar situation and perhaps even now with Shabbir Ahmed, who in the space of four days went from fit to non-fit.
It is beyond preposterous that the sport which is earning millions for the board, and players who are major participants in that sport and are irreplaceable assets, are being treated in such a cavalier manner by a medical board. If this was happening in any professional sport in North America or Europe, someone would have lost their job by now. the health of the athletes is of paramount importance, and somehow ways have to figured out to maintain that fitness. Fitness and the medical board's inquiries must go beyond treating when there is a problem, and trying to ascertain whether a player is "really" injured or not.
The medical board, must truly show a commitment to player fitness, on and off the field, and the team must be made to adopt a true fitness regime. I found it interesting, that while I was searching for the members of the medical board, I came across this report in The News again, where two Pakistani trained physios were upset with Woolmer's fitness regime. This either speaks to a lack of perspective by these physios or a problem with Woolmer's regime. I think the issue here really is, is that fitness has not become part of the Pakistani sports psyche. The preponderance of foreigners, albeit highly trained and professional, in the training realm, fails to make a connection with the cricketers who are usually only a year or two removed from small towns around Pakistan. This is where the PCB, and its Pakistani consultants and the selectors must show their strength, and demand a higher commitment to fitness by the squad. The Medical Board must also be held to a higher standard, and where a player is injured within the same year after returning from an injury, they must be taken to task and they must undergo quality assurance based testing. And why isn't there a dietitian and perhaps even a sports pharmacologist on the squad to help assist the players?
A commitment to fitness, a local, Urdu speaking presence on the fitness and physio groups affiliated with the team, and greater quality assurance process may not fix all the problems, but it may be a start to improving the team's perennial injury problems.
My intuitive feelings about the situation often lead me to conclude that perhaps it was just Compton the team physio, and Bob Woolmer who had to make the majority of these decisions, and that is what is the problem here. I must say, in my mind, Shoaib Akhtar's continuous solicitation of outside opinions did push me towards thinking that this was a ship with no captain.
Then, I read Kamran Abbasi's blog from the 24th, and then had to begin doing some research, because according to his estimation there must be atleast ten physicians involved with the whole PCB framework. Well, first of all, it took me forever to find out who is involved with this so - called medical board of inquiry. It took me even some time to find a picture of the chair of the medical board of inquiry, Dr. Sohail Saleem. And it was after Googling, Yahooing and MSN Search engining that I finally came across an article in The News from 2005, which listed the constituents of the Pakistan Cricket Board's medical inquiry committe, with its visiting consultants:
"The permanent faculty of the medical commission comprises Dr Sohail
Saleem (coordinator medical commission), Murray Stevenson (Biokineticist),
Darryn Lifson (physiotherapist) and Grant Compton (trainer).
The members of the Visiting Faculty of the medical commission are Dr Abdul
Wajid (consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon —Agha Khan Hospital Karachi),
Dr Waqar Farooqi (consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon —Shalimar Hospital,
Lahore), Dr Meesaq Rizvi (Sports Physician —Shapes Health Studio, Lahore)
and Dr Azhar Turab (consultant radiologist - Shaukat Khanum Hospital, Lahore)."
A fine collection of specialists by any definition, who appear to all have the proper credentials. Yet, given their performance over the past few years, specially with the drugs/doping fiasco just a few months ago, one would have thought that they would all have gotten thrown out on their proverbial and perhaps even literal tush! Yet, here they are are, making a complete mosh of teh Shoaib Akhtar situation and perhaps even now with Shabbir Ahmed, who in the space of four days went from fit to non-fit.
It is beyond preposterous that the sport which is earning millions for the board, and players who are major participants in that sport and are irreplaceable assets, are being treated in such a cavalier manner by a medical board. If this was happening in any professional sport in North America or Europe, someone would have lost their job by now. the health of the athletes is of paramount importance, and somehow ways have to figured out to maintain that fitness. Fitness and the medical board's inquiries must go beyond treating when there is a problem, and trying to ascertain whether a player is "really" injured or not.
The medical board, must truly show a commitment to player fitness, on and off the field, and the team must be made to adopt a true fitness regime. I found it interesting, that while I was searching for the members of the medical board, I came across this report in The News again, where two Pakistani trained physios were upset with Woolmer's fitness regime. This either speaks to a lack of perspective by these physios or a problem with Woolmer's regime. I think the issue here really is, is that fitness has not become part of the Pakistani sports psyche. The preponderance of foreigners, albeit highly trained and professional, in the training realm, fails to make a connection with the cricketers who are usually only a year or two removed from small towns around Pakistan. This is where the PCB, and its Pakistani consultants and the selectors must show their strength, and demand a higher commitment to fitness by the squad. The Medical Board must also be held to a higher standard, and where a player is injured within the same year after returning from an injury, they must be taken to task and they must undergo quality assurance based testing. And why isn't there a dietitian and perhaps even a sports pharmacologist on the squad to help assist the players?
A commitment to fitness, a local, Urdu speaking presence on the fitness and physio groups affiliated with the team, and greater quality assurance process may not fix all the problems, but it may be a start to improving the team's perennial injury problems.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
