BCCI inaugurates state-of-the-art ' Centre of Excellence' in Bengaluru

The hospital, housed in a 40-acre school comprises three premises, an indoor center and an expansive outside nets region featuring 45 pitches

Sixteen years after acquiring property from the Karnataka state to develop their football system, the BCCI on Friday inaugurated its fresh state-of-the-art National Cricket Academy, which will be known as the ' Centre of Excellence ', on the fringes of Bengaluru.

BCCI leader Roger Binny and director Jay Shah unveiled the service to the official bearers, which when fully functional from earlier 2025, may take over as union's main centre for training, sports science, rehabilitation and injury management. The activities from the existing NCA facilities at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium are expected to remain shifted out in a phased manner.

The facility, housed in a 40-acre campus, comprises three grounds, built as per ICC's regulations to host first-class cricket, an interior facility comprising surfaces imported from the UK and Australia aside from nearby surfaces- both red and black soil- and a great broad outside nets area featuring 45 pitches. There is also a distinct place designated to building BCCI's Sports Science and Medicine Block and lodging services.

The main facility comprises modern floodlights, a sub-air drain program, broadcast facilities and 13 red-soil surfaces brought in from Mumbai, which VVS Laxman, the NCA head, hopes may number' A' tour games as soon as it is functional.

Grounds B and C will serve as dedicated practice grounds, comprising black soil surfaces brought in locally from southern Karnataka and Odisha. The facility also has an indoor and outdoor athletics track, apart from pool and recovery facilities, which will also be made available to athletes from other disciplines. Seven acres of land has been set aside for future expansion.

" I think the beneficiaries will be not only the future generation of cricketers but also the current generation of cricketers", Laxman said during a media interaction on Saturday. " Since the time I joined the NCA in December 2021, all the cricketers, they come here, not only for rehab. Obviously, there is a misconception that the cricketers come only for rehab. However, they attend the NCA to advance their skills and get ready for the challenges that the various series they will take part in.

I can assure you that all the players who visit this facility and the others who participate in this program will work together to achieve excellence and strive to do the best they can. The Indian cricket team will likely be the best in the world as a result of all of these efforts.

The BCCI has been working on creating an excellence center akin to the Brisbane and Loughborough facilities of Cricket Australia. The land on which it was constructed had to overcome a number of legal difficulties, which at one point led to the BCCI considering moving it away from the city. The project finally received clearance in late 2020, with work starting in early 2022 after a forced delay due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

" The target for completion was 15 months]when the foundation stone was laid in February 2022]," Laxman said". I've attended some of the best universities in the world, including those that deal with other sports as well. But I have not seen this kind of a facility."

Laxman emphasized a number of aspects of how the NCA functions now that it has been increased, which could be improved. The programmes we run, because the way the programmes run, all the best performers right from your under-15 for women and under-16 for boys are selected by the national selectors and from April, during the off-season, until September, we have various programmes, "he said.

During this time, we ran close to 32 camps for both boys and girls, with the majority of them taking place throughout the nation. And with the KSCA, we get the ground to have some of these camps. Whereas here with three grounds, I think we can have a lot more programmes. Also these grounds can be used to have some India A series, which can be played on these surfaces here.

" The most important thing is, there are three different kinds of soils. What we want is the players to know how to adapt to different conditions. So they can get the experience and exposure of playing in different soils and different kinds of pitches in one place, which will improve their performance, not to travel from one city to another.