“We’re sending some players to the US,” Mike Hesson tells Cricinfo. “There’s some power-hitting expertise over there, and we’re exploring some options. We’ve got some players who’ve had some longer-term injuries, and players we want to expose to different methods of power hitting and just a different learning environment, spending four months in one place to get some new fresh ideas.”
The move would further signal the PCB’s intentions of overhauling what has long been perceived as a less than adequate medical and fitness culture within Pakistan cricket. Earlier this year, Dr Javed Mughal, a UK-based physiotherapist, was appointed Director Sports and Exercise Medicine. At a press conference alongside PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi earlier this month, he called fitness a “non-negotiable” in professional sport, and said the PCB had “developed a robust, reliable and repeatable testing and screening battery we had started to apply to all players.”
Hesson alluded to Mughal’s arrival, and the changes afoot within Pakistan’s National Cricket Academy (NCA), while saying sending players to the US was about more than just fitness.
“There’s a bit of a collaboration. It’s certainly not just strength and conditioning,” Hesson said. “We’ve got Javed Mughal who’s come in here and changing the way players are training and assessing them in a different way. So he needs time to plan it out as well.”
“Pace bowling wise, there’s no more injuries [within Pakistan] than there are anywhere else in the world,” Hesson said. “We’re trying to get Ali Raza fit and strong enough to deal with the demands of international cricket. It’s tough trying to be able to bowl multiple spells and sustain his pace. We know when he’s at his top end pace, he’s exciting. But when the pressure ramps up, the pressures on the body ramp up. So he’s got to work on his body so he can deal with those.
Overall, though, Hesson struck an upbeat note about the decision. “I think it’s good that we’re looking at exploring those [options of sending players to the US], rather than saying ‘no, you have to stay here’.”
*A complete version of Cricinfo’s interview with Mike Hesson will be available soon
