Rajat Bhatia explains the importance of training the mind and not the body in cricket

Rajat Bhatia may not be a big name in the international cricket circuit, but he is one of the few Indian players to have extensive experience of playing first-class cricket, most importantly, the elite Ranji Trophy. The 39-year-old made his debut in 1999 and has played 111 first-class matches, a huge record. In the on-going Ranji trophy season, in particular, he has amassed 616 runs at an impressive average of 205.33.

Bhatia, who has played for the Kolkata Knight Riders and Rising Pune Supergiant in the Indian Premier League (IPL), has often been plagued by injuries, which was one reason he had to miss the entire domestic season last year. In an interview, the veteran shared an interesting piece of information on how he battled his injury to make a comeback in the domestic season this time.

“I did a course on Human Biomechanics which was all about training. That has inspired me to keep playing, for the whole year I worked on my body and wanted to see how fit I was to play Ranji Trophy,” Bhatia told CricketNext.

Talking in detail about the course he said: “It focuses purely on body movements. The whole idea is to think how body moves, we need to train according to sport we play. Right now, I see a lot of people training in the gym to play a sport like cricket – which is basically a three-dimensional sport. We are not training our minds well enough and hence we face injury issues”

Young cricketers focusing on IPL and not domestic cricket 

Bhatia also expressed his concern on the lack of quality in domestic cricket, reasoning out too much attention towards the IPL for the same. According to the all-rounder, a lot of young cricketers have shifted their focus on bagging an IPL contract, instead of making it big in the domestic circuit.

“I feel a lot of players are saving themselves for the IPL and that is something BCCI should look into, first-class cricket should remain the priority,” the Delhi lad said.

Very recently, Mumbai’s Tushar Deshpande didn’t attend IPL trials in order to concentrate solely on domestic cricket. While that is just one example, a lot of cricketers are attracted to the glam and money of the T20 extravaganza, and that, according to Bhatia, is detrimental for domestic cricket in India.

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