RCB Bold Diaries: A sneak peek into RCB's first training session for IPL 2022

It almost had the feeling of the first day at school. You know, the kind where you have just finished your summer holidays, some of the old classmates back in a familiar environment, some new faces trying to blend in and get a feel for things, all under the watchful eyes of the teachers. In our case, it was the RCB coaching staff under the supervision of head coach Sanjay Bangar and the Director of Cricket Operations, Mike Hesson. What happened on the first day of RCB’s training camp ahead of the Tata IPL 2022? Mike Hesson and Sanjay Bangar provided a few insights into the day’s action.

The players this season have had to spend just 3 days in quarantine before getting onto the field. Asked if that makes a difference, Hesson said, “It makes a significant difference in terms that you don’t have to start reloading everybody. The fact that they have come into the 3-day quarantine having played a lot of cricket, they have had a little bit of a freshen up, and now it’s a matter of if you can freshen up and start training straight away, whereas previously it was like ‘Look, let’s ease into it. Let’s have a pool session, a gym session, let’s get rid of the cobwebs.’ Now we can actually start with some purpose.” 

“We don’t have to go too softly, which is nice,” Hesson added with a smile on his face. 

So what would the coaches look forward to in the first training session? Would the coaches like to see the players hit the ground running? “It is probably not quite a hard landing, but it’s close in terms of the guys wanting to impress. As I said, they have been playing not too long ago, so the stress on their body is still fine. So it’s just a matter of being quite specific already. But in 2 days’ time, we will start those scenario trainings and straight into match practice. So it’s quite a nice transition.”

The first session had a group of 7 players taking the field, and amongst them was Captain Faf du Plessis. After a couple of hours of sweat and toil on their first day out after the quarantine, Head Coach Sanjay Bangar gave his thoughts on the session. “It has been good. Good to see Faf coming and hitting a few balls really well, making good contact. And some of our established players who have been on the IPL circuit. Someone like Karn (Sharma) or Siddharth (Kaul), they’ve also turned up well. Not the entire group today, but we have 6 or 7, and they’ve looked good,” said an upbeat Sanjay Bangar. 

As the coaches have also revealed, the players have been split up into two groups, half of whom trained on the first day, while the other half will get onto the field on the second. The RCB squad is currently based out of Mumbai and will play the first game of the IPL season against the Punjab Kings on the 27th of March.