Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli has on Wednesday (June 2) yet again addressed the issue of mental health before leaving for their three and half month-long tour of the UK, as they are set to enter another lengthy bio-bubble for the upcoming Test assignments in England.
Ever since the resumption of cricket following the global Coronavirus outbreak, cricketers across the world especially in England and India, have been struggling to balance their mental health and workload while living in the controlled bio-bubbles amidst the toughest circumstances.
India will play New Zealand in the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) final in Southampton from June 18, followed by a five-Test series against England from August 4 to September 14, and then the IPL-bound players will have to directly travel to the UAE to complete the remainder of the IPL 2021 in September-October before the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 kicks off in October-November.
While, India’s second-string team will also play in Sri Lanka in a white-ball series in July this year, as the Indian cricketers will have to deal with the challenge of going from one bio-secure bubble to another with a little break in between in the coming six months.
Before India’s departure to England on Thursday, Kohli has thrown his weight behind the importance of mental health of the players, as the captain admitted the challenges for the players to stay motivated while being shuttling between hotel rooms and the ground without an outlet to disconnect from the game on long tours due to the prevailing COVID-19 situation across the world.
The 32-year-old has further suggested that addressing and assessing the mental health conditions of the players will definitely become “a norm” like how the teams handle workload management, saying it is important to give players a break if they are not feeling okay to play in the toughest circumstances.
Kohli said during a virtual press conference on Wednesday: “With the current structure and the kind of structure we are competing inside, it is very difficult to stay motivated and find that mental space, being confined in one area and just doing the stuff day in and day out and dealing with pressure situations. This will definitely become a norm of the future, apart from the workload; the mental aspect will also come into the picture big time.”
The dashing cricketer further explained, “Because you do not have an outlet at all in today's age. You are literally going to the ground and coming back to your room. You do not have space to disconnect from the game and step out for a walk. This is a huge factor that should not be neglected.
As much hard work, we have done to create this team, you do not want players falling out because of not being able to have that capacity. You have to keep the channel open, we have done that and players can say that they need a break if they are not feeling okay.”
After the WTC Final against New Zealand, India will get a break for more than a month before the five-match Test series against England, and Kohli welcomed the break, saying it will refresh the players and hopes they get to be “normal for a few days”.
Kohli further explained, “I feel like after you are done with WTC, I think it is a great opportunity to refresh and restructure, hopefully, if things are okay, just for the guys to be normal and disconnect again, to understand that we have the pressure of a five-match series. Like in Australia, if we had to contest in a bubble for that long period, it would have been tough.”
He added, “Just the fact that we had the freedom to go out and access the kind of things there, it gave us space to refresh and reset. I think it is absolutely fine, it will give us time to refresh and prepare for a long series. That kind of setup is important before you go to a lengthy series. The challenge in England can be daunting, so we want to have the time before that series.”
Meanwhile, Team India head coach Ravi Shastri echoed the sentiment of Kohli, admitting the need to keep players mentally fresh amidst the bio-bubbles during long assignments.
Shastri said during the virtual conference, “You will see it during the Test series against England when you have to play five Tests in six weeks, it is no joke. Even the fittest will need a break. More than the physical part, it's the mental part.
You can be destroyed mentally being asked to do the same things day in and day out and then go out and perform. And it's not easy to recover especially if you've had a bad day, so you know it's important you shuffle the guys around and keep them mentally fresh, it's not the physical part of it, because of the circumstances prevailing.”
On the talks regarding a team of white-ball specialists to travel to Sri Lanka in July, the head coach said: “Well, you never know, at the moment it is happening because of the current situation and the restrictions regarding travel. You never know, in the future, if you want to expand the game, especially the shorter formats of the game, then it could be the way to go.”
He concluded, “If you have that volume of cricketers, if you want to spread the T20 game across the globe, then it could be the way ahead. If you are talking of Olympics, then you need more teams to play the game.”
(With ANI Inputs)
