A day at the Tendulkar Middlesex Global Academy 

Exactly after five years from his retirement, Former Indian cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar joins hands with Middlesex County Cricket Club who start their Pune camp at the Bishops School, Pune.

Several cricketers from England and Indian domestic circuits joined the camp for coaching children between seven to 18 years old.

The coaching staff from Middlesex included John Simpson, A Middlesex first team wicketkeeper, Nick Compton, former English Test maestro and Head coach Joshua Knappett who is level 4 ECB coach.

Apart from this, Vinod Kambli, Shantanu Sugwekar and Pradeep Sunderam were few of the Indian Stalwarts coaching at TMGA.

Here in this article, Sportskeeda takes you to the TMGA camp in Pune and interacts with the coaches and students at the camps.

The four-day camp begins with a speech by Josh Knappett where he addresses the motive of the camp and gives an overview of what they will be learning in these four days. The first day of the camp focuses on getting the basics right.

After finishing the speeches, coaches and mentors at TMGA focus on Athlete Development. The mentors at TMGA worked on the decision making and sportsmanship in this section.

After which they gather around for autographs and photographs with Sachin and other Coaches.

After wrapping up the groupings, Students were divided into six different groups for their three sessions of masterclass. A rest of ten minutes was given to students after each masterclass.

On the Second day, students learned the techniques of combat spin bowling. The unique thing about this day was along with their spinners, their pacers were too asked to bowl spin.

On the next day, the camp focussed on fast bowling techniques where again all the bowlers were asked to bowl fast albeit, whatever their speciality is.

Kambli with the students at camp

When Sportskeeda asked about the strategy behind this, The Head Coach Josh Knappett said,

"So for us, it's about making sure that we can set a right learning environment for our batters and also our students can build an empathy towards what their teammates are going through. Also, who knows they might be leading their side tomorrow so they will have an idea of what type of field, what type of support his teammate needs."

The last day of the camp is known to be Innovation day, Here the major focus of the coaches is on teaching the skills which prepared them to persist in the modern-day cricket.

Nick Compton and John Simpson were seen exercising Reverse Sweep, Upper Cut and many other unorthodox shots accompanying the batters in the camp.

Whereas, on the other side of the camp fast bowlers were practising yorkers and slower balls in the intention of bowling at slog overs in the shorter format. Josh Knappett also shared his views on emphasising such practices in the camp curriculum,

" We want them to get their right which will help them to establish a method of playing all around the world. But, cricket played five years back is completely different from what it is today, so you need to stay contemporary and innovate with the game."

Middlesex first team wicketkeeper, John Simpson instructing wicket-keepers at the camp

Quotes from the students

Sonu Ranjan, Kochi

"The coaches at TMGA were extremely helpful, They used to demonstrate all the things they wanted from us and if they would find any flaw in it, they would ask us to pause at the same position and guide us about what was to be. Back in Kochi, we don't have such big grounds available, so some drills were new to us. Like many of us, Sachin is my role model too, meeting him and getting lessons from him is one of the best experience of my life"

Rishabh Kulkarni, Pune

" I am playing cricket since last 4 years, but the techniques and skills I learned here were class-apart from what I learned back in my academy. Getting coached here at TMGA under Sachin Tendulkar is itself a big achievement."

Fans gathered after the end of the day to greet their cricketing idols