‘An academy is judged by the quality of players it produces...’

...says Irfan Sait, the founder of KIOC, has been turning out cricket stars for 26 years in B’luru

Vasudha Zora & Falah Faisal | NT

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Institute of Cricket churned out some of the star players in the cricket circle; players like Mayank Agarwal, Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, K Gowtham, and R Samarth don the academy’s name. Coach and Founder of the academy Irfan Sait is a Level 3 trained coach from England (ECB).

He says that when he ventured into the cricket world, he was unaware of the sport, but was inspired when heard of Gundappa Viswanath, a young lad winning respect and laurels, he says, “It was a big event at that time, a young Karnataka lad scoring a century on debut against the mighty Australians.”

It was when cricket initially took shape for Irfan and he started playing near the house and participated in inter-school cricket, club cricket matches very shortly he was hooked on the game. He started by organising matches and then progressed to forming teams. He also went on to join Swastic Union, a renowned cricket club and he is now the vice president of the union.

KIOC started shaping after one of his tours to Australia where he went with the other members of the Swastic Union. He liked the structured method of coaching and the organisation. He noticed that there was a way of explaining things, “It’s the same bowling and batting, but providing training with the pathway and inculcating methodical training methods seemed ideal.”

Explaining it he said,”Let’s say a rookie, for example, would take a lot of information to improve themselves and to learn new techniques as they start from scratch, however for an elite player, what is that they’re looking for? Instead of giving a lot of information, a single point works fine and they can correct themselves based on that.”

After the trip, he started looking for spaces and collaborated with experts and prominent cricket figures and once all was falling into place, KIOC finally started in 1996. The institution since then has equipped itself with modern amenities like six bowling machines, 20 fully covered nets, Quintic Video analysis software, digital equipment, speed check radar, a hostel for overseas and out-station trainees, in-house psychotherapist, dedicated and passionate coaching staff and much more. It is also the only cricket center in the country that operates 365 days for 15 hours a day.

The academy does not have any holidays apart from any government-imposed ones. VVS Laxman, a former cricketer once asked Irfan, “Have you produced any cricketers yet?” when KIOC was only a threeyear-old institution. Irfan did not have an answer for it and that’s when Sourav Ganguly came to his rescue and said that it takes 10 years to build a cricketer and they’ve just started and so they need more time.

“Both VVS Laxman’s question and Sourav Ganguly’s response had an impact on me. I realised that everybody is judged based on their output. Regardless of how you decorate your academy, it is ultimately the type of players you produce and the tournaments you play,” he said.

Nooshin Al Khadeer was the first cricketer from the academy to wear the India cap, and soon she was followed by Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, Veda Krishnamurthy, and so on. The academy currently has over 2000 trainees in the post-Covid era, compared to 3000 plus trainees pre-Covid era.

To the drop in numbers, Irfan says, “The numbers would have dwindled but the serious players have joined back and the leisure ones have quit for their own reasons, we have a better group to train and provide opportunities with because cricket is also a crowded sport with very few making it to the top.”

The boys and girls train alongside each other and do not see gender as an altering factor but more as an enhancement of skills for players of all genders. He says that women’s cricket is rapidly growing In every aspect, it can also be deemed as the best time for women cricketers. Cricket when compared to other sports has more fan following and popularity in the country and this is due to the amazing marketing done globally.

Even job opportunities for cricketers are another form of glamour; most of them can become commentators, experts, or umpires. Irfan says that parents have realised the power of alternative careers over mainstream ones and drop their children and take interest in their sports career due to these job securities the game offers.

“I tell my students that cricket is not just a sport, it is a way of life. It teaches you how to interact, and being a team sport, it gives you roles to play, similar to the roles one plays in society, at KIOC we do a complete nourishment for the players