How a stress fracture turned Gurnoor Brar into a tearing wound

One had to rub one’s eyes when Gurnoor Brar effortlessly hit 148kph with his fourth delivery of his international career in the first ODI against Afghanistan on Saturday. A weak run-up, an unforced delivery step and distinctive floaty outswingers coming down from six and a half feet can be deadly deceptive to a batsman. And then when he got his first international wicket with a back-of-length ball to Afghanistan opener Ibrahim Zadran, no one could miss the shy smile on the face of India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel. The sequence brought back memories of Morkel’s hay days in international cricket. As much as 26-year-old Brar’s debut spell of 3/27 would have excited cricket fans, it must have settled a few nerves in the national selection committee. The Ajit Agarkar-led selection committee identified himself as a long-format bowler a couple of years ago. The committee stuck its neck out by selecting Brar for Afghanistan’s tour of India over domestic cricket sensation Auqib Nabi. An interesting part of Brar’s story is that he developed all these skills barely three years ago after suffering a stress fracture in 2022. It is important to note that he only took up cricket at the age of 17 on the insistence of his father, a constable in the Punjab Police by profession, to avoid indulging in bad habits outside of school. With the world trapped in their homes during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, he sneaked up to coach Varinder Singh and began training at the Launching Pad Academy in Mohali. “Gurnoor was around 20 when he came to me. He didn’t play junior cricket at the state level. He just wanted to grow up and we practiced stealthily during the lockdown without anyone noticing us. He could barely hit 135 km/h at that time and always fell back a bit,” Varinder told TOI. During the 2022 Sher-e-Punjab T20 League, Gurnoor suffered a stress fracture. Varinder took formal courses in biomechanics at local universities and has always taken a data-driven approach in his academy. “We use all the sports equipment and keep data on our players in our academy – including sleep patterns and workload. When he broke down, I realized he needed to change his activity to increase the tempo and get the ball swinging. He couldn’t swing the ball before,” said Varinder. It is not easy to change the bowling action at the age of 22 and especially when one is running out of time to make it to the senior level. The best thing about Gurnoor, according to Varinder, is that he ‘submits to his coaches’. “He said he was ready to do anything if it opened the door for a higher level of cricket,” Varinder recalled. He then added, “Even now, whatever feedback he gets from Ashish Nehra at Gujarat Titans and the BCCI coaches, he follows it blindly. He didn’t get any matches for the Titans but he wasn’t affected because the communication was clear from Nehra and the selectors. Nehra told him to strengthen his bowling muscles and we did.” Now back to the transformation process. “He loved fried food, even though he worked hard to burn it off. But he decided to give it up. We put together a diet to increase his protein intake from natural sources. And then we got him to swing more from the front, in addition to changing his wrist position to make the ball swing. Before delivery, his head was falling into the lead. We straightened that out.” “It was three months of grueling training before the domestic season. The next year he started bowling at 145 kmph,” the coach said proudly after watching his charge consistently bowl at 148 kmph on the international stage. “He can jump over 150km/h. Maybe he took it easy on his debut,” joked Varinder. The selection committee and the team management have high hopes from Gurnoor. It was a project that was carefully crafted. It’s about time he hit the big leagues.