BCCI introduces Advanced Athlete Monitoring System for state cricket associations

The apex cricket governing body of the country, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been working hard on modernizing the facilities and the management system in the country for quite some time. The Indian board of late has been making headlines for various landmark announcements concerning the growth of cricket and the players involved at the domestic level.

Be it from addressing pay grade issues to improving infrastructure, the board has been leaving no stone unturned in revolutionizing Indian cricket. Now in a fresh development, the BCCI has shifted its focus to the way players are groomed in the domestic circuit. It has been revealed that the board has informed various state associations that to monitor players' progress more efficiently, they are making the refined Athlete Monitoring System (AMS) available to them. This move was initiated by none other than the BCCI Secretary, Jay Shah.

In the letter, Shah mentioned that a team from the Centre of Excellence (COE) which was inaugurated recently, will assist the associations in using the advanced system to track the progress of a player. Not just that, the system also helps in planning and scheduling rehabilitation programmes for players in injury cases. Moreover, it also tracks the workload and fitness aspects of a player. Besides, the system can easily be accessed through a mobile app which will monitor almost every aspect of grooming a player in a bid to help them reach their best potential in the long run.

Notably, until now, the AMS facility was only used by the National Cricket Academy (NCA), where only the centrally contracted players of the BCCI and some selected players from the zonal camp were allowed to use the facility for their efficient training. However, in the historical move, the BCCI will now ensure that the advanced training system will be made available to the cricket associations free of cost.

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"After our recent inauguration of the new BCCI Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru, I’m pleased to apprise you that the BCCI shall offer an Athlete Monitoring System (AMS) for all State Associations – with costs being borne by BCCI. The state associations can now avail the following benefits in a bid to standardize player monitoring to ensure better management and enable peak performance for the player," Shah was quoted as saying by India Today.

Not all associations can afford sophisticated system: MPCA President

Meanwhile, the former NCA Head and India international VVS Laxman shared his views in this regard. He revealed that the AMS will gather data annually for every player who marks their presence in the zonal and national camps which are conducted from time to time. As a result, this will make the coaches and trainers jobs easy to figure out the journey of a budding player in a brief period.

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In the same vein, the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association's (MPCA) president, Abhilash Khandekar, too chimed in and appreciated BCCI's landmark move. He was ecstatic about the fact that until now the state associations were deprived of using a refined training system which can help a player achieve his/her best performance.

"It is a welcome step taken by the BCCI. Not all associations can afford such a sophisticated system, so making it free of cost is also commendable," Khandekar stated.

"The BCCI already invests a lot on the infrastructure in the states and this move will help not only educate the players more on monitoring, but also the state units," he concluded.