If there is one obsession that unites this vast country it’s cricket. Every time India wins, the country goes delirious, and with every loss insanity rages supreme. Like the rest of the country Bangalore too is a passionate howzatt city and home to many a living legend, the likes of which include Erapalli Prassanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Gundappa Viswanath, Syed Kirmani, Roger Binny, and the recent heroes like Rahul Dravid, Robin Uthappa, Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad.

Unlike other sports in India, cricket is considered as a career option by many middle-class Indian families. On any given day youngsters of all sizes can be seen sweating it out at the nets, aspiring to don the Indian colours and play at the prestigious M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in their home city. If you are one among the breed, who can’t resist the lure of the willow and dream to be a demigod, start your innings at the many cricket academies that dot the city’s landscape.

Meet Irfan Sait, the director of Karnataka Institute of Cricket , popularly known as KIOC. Irfan is a qualified Level II coach and had instructed the Indian team during the 1996 World Cup. Supervised by Irfan, KIOC boasts of state-of-the-art training facilities apart from bowling machines, video analysis of the game using high-end software and a dedicated team of over twenty-five coaches. There is a separate coaching facility for women and the best time to get enrolled here is during the summer vacation.

Syed Imtiaz Ahmed is a former Karnataka Ranji player who runs the Imtiaz Ahmed Cricket Academy . This institute has coached many players who have played at national and international levels, the likes of which include Rahul Dravid and Robin Uthappa. Along with Syed and Jaswanth Bakrania, a former Ranji and Duleep trophy player from Gujarat, there are over twelve coaches and an expert panel to instruct boys between the ages of eight and nineteen.

Inside M. Chinnaswamy Stadium is the National Cricket Academy (NCI) sponsored by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. NCI has special programmes and holds regular seminars for coaches apart from conducting training camps for budding talents.

Former cricketers Brijesh Patel and Roger Binny have their own coaching academies as well.

One day………international soon!