The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) are hunting for a replacement for Nitin Patel, the current Sport Science head of the Centre of Excellence (formerly the National Cricket Academy).
Nitin was the India cricket team physio from 2007 to 2015 and had even worked with the Mumbai Indians. He had joined the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in April 2022 and oversaw injury & workload management and rehabilitating both international and domestic cricketers.
Injured Jasprit Bumrah left with help
He played a major role in helping Hardik Pandya, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami and, most importantly, Jasprit Bumrah in getting back to prime fitness.
Now that Nitin will leave, the BCCI has to make sure they have someone apt for the job to handle India’s most important asset, Bumrah. The fast bowler had injured his back in early January, and there is no date for his return. This is the time you need someone of Nitin’s expertise, but he won’t be there.
BCCI Sport Science head to leave by March 31
BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia refuted the claims that Nitin had resigned. The CoE Sports Science head’s contract had ended last year, but following a request, he continued for three further months. Now, Nitin is leaving.
“It has been wrongly reported by the media that Patel has resigned. His contract/tenure was over on Dec 31, 2024. Then we made him a special request to extend his tenure by three months, which he agreed to. His extended contract will be over by March 31,” Saikia told the Times of India.
BCCI didn’t want Nitin to leave, but due to some personal reason, he has to leave. The board is actively looking for his replacement and would likely want to find someone by March 31.
“We are trying to get a new person (to replace him) and are in talks with a few people. We wanted Nitin to continue, but he’s got a pressing personal (family) issue to attend to, so he can’t continue, so we will have an alternative person in his place,” he added.
