Bronco run returns: Le Roux brings intense fitness drills back to Team India

Dubai: The year was 2002, and India just scripted history at the Queen’s Park Oval, beating the West Indies in a Test after 36 long years. Riding high on confidence, the team travelled to St Lucia for a two-day side game against the Busta XI. Coach John Wright decided to give the senior players a well-earned break. But on the second day, as the game ambled along, a tired-looking senior India player wandered into the press box gallery at Gros Islet.

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“We were better off playing,” he said, half-smiling, half-exasperated. His complaint wasn’t about the cricket — it was about the running. Instead of allowing the players to rest and recover after the gruelling Test, which India won by 37 runs, strength and conditioning coach Adrian Le Roux put the senior stars through a punishing fitness routine that had them running laps across St Lucia. Le Roux, a hard taskmaster, believed in setting high fitness standards — and it was no coincidence that India played some of their most intense and disciplined cricket in the early part of the millennium. Two decades on, the faces may have changed, but Le Roux’s philosophy hasn’t. The South African is back for his second stint with Team India — and so are his dreaded running drills, this time rechristened as the ‘Bronco Run.

’ “It’s not a new run or a new measurement,” Le Roux says in a three-minute video posted on the BCCI website. “It has been around for a number of years in different sporting codes, and it is something we introduced recently within the team environment. “The idea is two-fold: we can use it as a training mechanism, and secondly as a measurement tool. It gives us a clear picture of where the players stand in terms of aerobic fitness and whether we are moving in the right direction. “It allows the player to assess himself. It’s a functional, practical test. “It’s a passion for the Indian team, coming with the history I have with them over the last two decades. Over these years, the biggest change has been in the sheer volume of cricket the guys play. My goal is simple — for the players to be in the best shape possible to showcase their skills.” Working across two very different eras of Indian cricket, Le Roux insists the fundamentals of strength and conditioning haven’t changed — only the demands on players have. What exactly is a Bronco Run? Widely used in rugby, the Bronco Run is designed to push a player’s aerobic and cardiovascular capacity to its limit. It involves running between four set markers placed at 0m, 20m, 40m, and 60m. One set requires a player to cover 240 metres by sprinting back and forth in a set sequence. Completing five such sets — a total of 1,200 metres — without a break.