Know your stars: Ranbir Singh Virdi - grace personified

First Coach: SS Sandhu. I have always been very athletic. My jump is god gifted. In 7^th standard I was playing basketball. My height then was 5’6-7’’ and I could easily touch the ring. Coach Sandhu had come to the court, noticed me play and called me over. He asked about my family and I told him about my father. He said he knew him well and told me to start coming daily for training. He taught me all the fundamentals, which I use till this day. Whenever I turned up late, he used to punish me by sitting me out and making me watch the others instead.

Signature move (favourite move): Drive in and Dunks! I love being in a one-on-one situation and beating my defender off the dribble and driving to the basket.

How do you train for this move: It’s actually all about staying true to the fundamentals that you learn as a child. This is what will hold you in good stead at the senior level as well.

His Favourite Move: Ranbir takes part in a dunk contest in his hometown of Kotkapura, Punjab. (Photo courtesy: Ranbir Singh Virdi)

Training regimen: In our off season, our Punjab Coach Gurkirpal Singh has us training six days a week, with Sunday beingour rest day. We have both morning and evening sessions. Three of the morning sessions are dedicated to weight training in the gym and the other three mornings are for stamina training, which includes hill running. The evening sessions are for skill development and we might also play one or two games a week. During tournaments, we do less gymming and focus on maintaining our stamina.

Mindset in training and in games: In matches, when both teams are even, then a little anger helps you gain an edge. This is also true in the gym, where the idea is to push yourself really hard.

Do you listen to music while you train? I noticed you at the Ramu Memorial Tournament before the match against Karnataka where you were tinkering with the DJ console.

Music is an important part of my pregame rituals. I wear my headphones and music helps me relax before a game. I don’t want to overthink. I try to distract myself, since we have already finalised our strategies beforehand. My favourite pregame song is Akon’s I wanna love you. You wouldn’t believe it but I’ve listened to this song at least 30,000 to 40,000 times! I also listen to Lehmber Hussainpuri, a popular Punjabi pop singer.

Strengths and weaknesses: Basketball is one of those games where you can spend your whole life learning. My focus now is on weight training. At the international level, you have teams like China, Japan and Korea where each player is equal in size to two of our players! As Michael Jordan says, “Even a senior can learn from juniors.” It all comes down to your mindset and how much you are open to learning.

All this attention on cricket. Is it fair?

“Yaar mujhe itna gussa aata hain!” (Man, I get so angry sometimes). Whatever channel you turn on, it’s only cricket, cricket, cricket. The kind of facilities cricketers enjoy is unbelievable. If you come and watch any of our training sessions and see the amount of work we do, you will say “aapko to sazaa ho gayi hain” (you have been punished).

Please don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying cricketers don’t work hard or that they don’t deserve the attention. But the point is that since all television and media broadcasts are dominated by the faces of MS Dhoni and Sachin Tendulkar, parents see only cricketers and insist that their children take up only cricket. There are other sports as well, you know!