Having come across Indian teams quite frequently in the 1990s during his 11-year-stint as the physiotherapist of the South African cricket team, Craig Smith is impressed by the amazing turnaround in fitness levels of the current crop of Indian players.
Talking to The Hindu on the sidelines of a training course for physiotherapists in the city, Mr. Smith recollected how Indian cricketers were found wanting in physical preparations back in the 90s. Because of their lack of mental commitment to work and train hard, a lot of them struggled when they had to play games on the bounce.
“To be fair, Indian cricket as a whole, in terms of administration, players, medical and training teams and their academies, has improved dramatically in the last eight to twelve years. That was not just because they got westernised people involved but they realised that if they had to improve, they needed to get the right people. And they did just that by roping in physios like Andrew Leipus,” said Mr. Smith.
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Indian cricket has turned successful on the back of their fit, strong and resilient players and the culture has now percolated down as reflected in the preparedness of academy players and new players breaking into the national team.
“Besides, they are motivated. It is great to see and is good for the cricket,” he said.
Mr. Smith, however, ruled out the fall in fitness levels as the reason behind the recent decline of the South African cricket team, observing how the team continued to enjoy the services of a high-quality team of physiotherapists and trainers.
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“The problem with South African cricket is the crisis in management and Cricket South Africa. The chief executive has been suspended, the main sponsor has pulled out, there is no full time cricket director — these are issues they have to fix,” he said.
A postgraduate in dry needling physiotherapy, Mr. Smith was in the city training local physiotherapists.
“Dry needling is unique... it involves putting an acupuncture needle inside the muscles at the exact point of the injury. Nothing else gets directly to the muscles which makes the treatment much more specific and healing that much quicker,” he said.
Mr. Smith observed an increasing acceptance for physiotherapy in India over the last two decades, as many Indian physiotherapists were taking masters degrees and opening their own practice besides working in multidisciplinary hospitals.
Having done multiple stints as physio with English county clubs such as Lancashire and Nottinghamshire, Mr. Smith retired as a cricket team physio in 2010 after spending 20 years on the job. “Sports physio is one of the best and satisfying jobs in the world. I am very happily retired and haven’t ever looked back even once since then,” he said.