She will work with Evan Speechly and Shanker Basu.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), on Thursday (October 17), became the first team in the premier T20 event to hire a woman in support staff for the upcoming 13th edition of the tournament.
The Bengaluru-based franchise has appointed Navnita Gautam as Sports Massage Therapist for the IPL 2020, as her role will be to identify and implement massage therapy to help Virat Kohli-led RCB to prepare and recover better during the grueling schedule.
Following the latest development, Navnita will now be working with Evan Speechly and Shanker Basu – RCB’s Head Physiotherapist and Strength & Conditioning Coach respectively.
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Taking to Twitter on Thursday, RCB announced the appointment Navnita for the 13th edition of IPL.
The post reads: “Navnita Gautam joins us as a sports massage therapist for the 13th edition of IPL. She will work to identify and implement massage therapy to help the team prepare and recover better. We are proud to be the first IPL team to have a woman support staff member.”
Meanwhile, Chairman of RCB, Sanjeev Churiwala, said of the appointment in an official statement: “I am very pleased to be a part of this moment in history and another step in the right direction. The game has come a long way, in many ways, in terms of the Women's Cricket Team and how many people are watching it, the interest was long due.”
The RCB official added, “Sport is a great enabler, but it is important to ensure that the principles of equity in participation also extends to its staffing bodies. Increasing participation and success by women in all sporting arenas have made this possible and we at RCB are very thrilled to have found great talent in Navnita.”
Noteworthy, the RCB, who are yet to win an IPL title despite having a lot of talented players at their ranks, recently appointed Mike Hesson as their Director of Cricket Operations and Simon Katich as the new Head Coach for the IPL 2020.
(With RCB Inputs)