| Contrast this with Australia, which won the ICC World Cup 2007, the third time it's done so. Many attribute this to the country's scientific approach to the game, with Sports Medicine Australia, a national-level body taking a multi-displinary approach to all aspects of sports medicine and sports science. "The team behind the team" is what Sports Medicine Australia calls itself. |
| Sports medicine is catching up in South Africa and England too, going by the papers presented at the Third World Congress of Science and Medicine in Cricket. The congress is held during the ICC World Cup to provide a view of the basic, applied and clinical sciences as they relate to cricket and the impact of cricket on society. |
| "It is the sustained use of science that has helped Australia and South Africa sustain their performance," says Dr Rajat Chauhan, consultant sports and exercise medicine, Manipal Hospital. |
| Chauhan has participated in two World Congresses and is now trying to bring the World Congress to India in 2011. A systemic change to inculcate the use of modern techniques is needed if India is to churn out world-beating cricketers as Australia does, Chauhan believes. |
| But first India needs the basic infrastructure. "We do not even have proper grounds, how can we even think of sports medicine and sports science," says Brijesh Patel, secretary of the Karnataka State Cricket Association and former Indian test cricker who now runs the Brijesh Patel Cricket Academy. |
| If any Indian is making it big in the internatonal arena today, it is the because of his inherent skills and not because of the system, feels Patel. |
| "The state has to invest heavily in science, only then can we expect it to become a part of the sport in India. Sports is not our priority," he adds. |
| Patel gives the example of England where a percentage of the proceeds from the public lottery is spent on improving sports infrastructure and developing sports. |
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