Boot-camp which crushed Shane Warne, back in action

Shane Warne fell victim to coach John Buchanan’s infamous boot-camp prior to the 2006 Ashes series, which also broke several other Australian cricketers. The camp had taken place three months before the start of the Gabba Test, and Warne was left flabbergasted at the end of the intense training.

Despite already being one of the world’s greatest leg-spinners at the time, Shane Warne was forced to undergo rigorous sets of exercises which completely broke his back. Warne was forced to do hikes while carrying sandbags, which certainly wasn’t pleasing for the hefty leg-spinner.

“I think it is one of John Buchanan’s wonderful, mastermind things that keeps everyone stumped,” he said before he was packing his rucksack. What followed was far from pleasant.

Casualties began to hamper the Australian team right away. Stuart MacGill suffered a knee injury, while fast bowler Michael Kasprowicz was down with an injured back. As a result, there were questions being raised about the legitimacy and the benefits of that boot camp.

Cricket Australia’s infamous boot camp returns

However, Cricket Australia plans to maintain this tradition for the future. Recently, 18 of Australia’s brightest emerging talents were pushed to their physical and mental limits in an exhaustive camp. The camp was in many ways similar to that which broke the country’s best cricketers almost a decade ago.

National Performance Program head coach Troy Cooley was the one in charge of the camp last week. He is well aware of the benefits and the drawbacks these camps can bring to teams.

Incidentally, Cooley was present when Warne and MacGill were made to go through the grind 12 years ago. Following his role in England’s shock 2005 Ashes success, John Buchanan insisted on bringing him into the Australian coaching staff as the new bowling coach.

“Part of that was Warney and Stuey MacGill sitting at a table while all the boys went out and did (their challenges) one day. They had to sit there and face each other all day writing down what leadership and mateship was all about,” Cooley told FoxSports.com.au.

Meanwhile, Shane Warne recollected those challenging days and said some ‘beautiful’ things about the camp, all perfectly wrapped in sarcasm.

What was Shane Warne actually doing at the boot camp?

“We were pushing cars up hills on gravel, it was great fun carrying 25kg backpacks, sleeping out under stars in only a sleeping bag, that was just wonderful. Getting bitten by mosquitoes, getting woken up in the middle of the night and going orienteering when there are kangaroos jumping around, it was just a wonderful time to be honest,” Warne shared.

Meanwhile, Cooley is having fun drawing up similarities from that infamous boot camp to give the current lot of youngsters a hard time.

“They’ve been divorced from cricket, they’ve been put under a lot of pressure in some adverse conditions. But you’ve still got to work as a team to get yourself out of the bushwalk. You can see how people can act. We brought those ideas to the conversation and talked about that, made it relevant and brought it back to cricket. About how it is all the same, when you get into those pressure situations and have to battle fatigue,” Cooley said.

All said and done, perhaps the seemingly torturous camp does help players to face adverse situations on the cricket field. It must have worked for the Australians, as they turned things around after an Ashes defeat to record an emphatic 5-0 whitewash over England.