Football, rugby or American football are considered as some of the most ruthless sports as far as the toll on a player’s physical abilities is concerned. The players associated with these games, especially footballers run up and down the field throughout the game, and hence, require extremely good stamina. While the popular belief is that cricketers don’t have to deal with the sort of workload, former Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) chief MSK Prasad’s comments on how much skipper Virat Kohli runs, contradicts the notion.
As for footballers, who are believed to run the most during a normal game, the range sits between 8 to 13 kms in 90 mins, with midfielders being exhausted to the most amount of work as they contribute both in attack and defence. Speaking of the superstar players like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo who both are forwards, the average is around 7.6 kms and 8.38 kms respectively.
Ex-BCCI selection committee chairman, Prasad, in a recent interview, revealed that Kohli runs for an average of 17 kms in a game during a good knock with the bat. The tally beats not just the average but also the peak figure of the distance covered by a footballer.
“It is applicable to all those in the BCCI contract system”, Prasad said while revealing that every BCCI contracted player is tracked using a GPS performance tracking and analysis system. “Even practice schedules suggest their workload. For instance, Kohli runs 17 km during a good knock in the middle. All foreign teams are also doing the same. Physios monitor the workload. I must say Shankar Basu, who introduced this, was a phenomenal trainer,” he told Sportstar in an interview.
