India's own Aussie

These days, Andrew Leipus's snapshots of India are largely restricted to cricket grounds and the innards of five-star hotels in which the team cocoon themselves. It wasn't always that way. Almost 10 years ago, a young man from Adelaide and his South African girlfriend - now wife - arrived in India with dreams of seeing the country from the locals' perspective. "We travelled around India catching local buses and trains, staying in guesthouses for Rs 50 a night ... a complete contrast to how I see it now," says Leipus, looking back on those three months spent backpacking through the towns, hills and plateaus of a vast subcontinent.

It was an experience that was to prove invaluable when he arrived in India almost five years later, entrusted with managing the national team's injury troubles and with fast-tracking them onto the road to physical fitness. An Indian connection of a different kind had helped him get the job, he narrates, rewinding back to a time when John Wright was still an unknown Kiwi for most Indians. "I was working in first-class cricket in South Africa, where I was living at the time," he says, "and I was also working in a sports medicine clinic treating athletes and sportspeople."

Dr Mark Ferguson, a renowned shoulder surgeon, worked there and one of his patients was a certain Javagal Srinath. "Sri came there for his [injury] management and I got to meet him there," says Leipus about an association that was to change his life. "When this position came up [two years later], Sri contacted me and asked whether I would be interested in applying. And I thought, Why not?"

Other than his work as a physio in first-class cricket, and a love of the sport that dates back to his childhood, Leipus had no cricketing pedigree to fall back on. As a youngster he tried everything from the triathlon to water sports, while also being passionate about Aussie Rules Football. "It was natural that I drifted into sports sciences after I finished school," he says.

No qualification or experience, though, would prepare him for what awaited when he landed in India. "If I hadn't had previous experience of India to begin with, I think it would have been a huge culture shock," he says. "Arriving on the eve of a Test match, not knowing anything about the country - that would have been difficult in the extreme. It was also a big step up from first-class cricket to professional international cricket ... I was more anxious about that than anything else."

And while he was never perturbed by the Indian experience, Leipus admits that India's cricket culture was a shock to the system. "I never felt that the culture was something I needed to adapt to," he says. "I assimilated that quite readily. But I was awestruck by the attention paid to this bunch of blokes. I knew what international cricketers in South Africa were like ... and they weren't treated anything like they are over here. That was something that I had to get used to."

Having dealt with shock and awe, he had to turn his attention to his wards - this was in the days when the physio was also expected to double up as fitness trainer. When asked about the initial hassles, Leipus is diplomatic. "I always found the players receptive to new ideas, always keen to learn. But there's a difference between learning something and actually putting it into action. So there was a bit of a struggle initially to get to know them, know their habits."

He was working on fallow ground, which was both a help and a hindrance. "It's probably fair to say that a culture of physical fitness was absent," he says. "The previous physio, Andrew Kokinos, had probably alerted them to the idea that there were other methods of training available, but nothing had been established. So it was still pretty much Ground Zero.

"I had to know their mindset to training, absorb that, process it, and then come up with the right strategies to get them to change their ways. A lot of the time in the beginning was spent trying to educate the guys about the benefits of scientific training."

It didn't help that the players' previous ideas of fitness were laced with misconceptions. Batsmen worked on strengthening their forearms and wrists, while fast bowlers worked on their shoulders, backs and legs. The mantra of total fitness - each man doing everything, with specialisation an additive - was conspicuously absent.

Breaking through the barrier wasn't easy, but Leipus managed it by resorting to that age-old force, peer pressure. "It was a matter of getting a couple of guys to work a bit harder than the rest, and getting the results with them," he says. "When everyone else saw the improvement in their performance, it just snowballed from there."

He's reluctant to talk about those who shirked in those early days. "There was a certain apathy at the start," he says. "There was this attitude that I'm already at the top level, why do I need to do anything more? But then, when the [National Cricket] Academy started, it helped give those people a bit of a shake-up. When the youngsters came through, with their great fitness levels, they [the shirkers] were really shown up in the fielding, for example."

The NCA is a subject close to his heart, and he has been involved with the formulation of its training programme from day one. And having just spent a few days in Bangalore with the latest batch of trainees, he says those efforts have been well worth it. "Just to see the U-19 side in the gym, without having to be told ... you wouldn't have seen that a few years ago," he says with a hint of a smile.

The dual role was too much though - "Both John and I knew that there was a need for a specialist trainer" - and the arrival of Adrian Le Roux, and later Gregory Allen King, allowed Leipus to focus on his area of expertise, injury management. "They're two distinct jobs and it was only once Adrian came along that I could spend more time treating injured players and planning rehabilitation programmes," he says. The arrival of a trainer also gave the workouts added intensity. "I used to tell the guys what to do, but I wouldn't have time to go one-on-one with them. Adrian came on board and had that time to spend. That's when it really took off."

The road to modernisation hasn't enthused everyone. Every so often you get to read statements from former greats about the evils of the laptop-gymnasium culture, and some of these folks have been spokes in the wheel even at the best of times. "There are still myths and misconceptions carrying on in the country that negate the benefits of scientific training," says Leipus, but he adds graciously that there are two sides to every debate. "Hopefully, people will see the light with time."

Another huge obstacle was the diet. Champions don't subsist on makhi ki roti and butter chicken. "It's still a problem," admits Leipus. "The food we were getting was more party food, high in simple sugars, high on fat and butter, deep fried ... it just wasn't performance food, wasn't for people going out there to do their physical best.

"I'm responsible for the diet during matches, and that's important because it's the one time I can control what they eat. All you can do is make them aware of what they should and shouldn't be eating. When it comes to, say, the food at the ground, you can speak to the chefs, and give them your guidelines on what the menu should be, and how to prepare it, but then they interpret that in their own way. What you ask for and what you get can be completely different."

That's not to say that those who sneak in a kebab or two dozen on the sly will escape punishment. "One of the parameters we measure every two weeks is body fat. That will definitely indicate if the diet's been neglected. We control what we can."

Rahul Dravid, who came into the side three years before Leipus arrived, insists that the team is fitter than they've ever been. For Leipus, that statement is borne out by results. "I don't think you need to be a rocket scientist to see how fitness standards have equated to performance in the case of Australia and South Africa. Even New Zealand, who aren't considered to be the most skilled blokes in the world, are up there because they're physically quite fit. That's not to say that cricket's not a skill game. But fitness allows you to exhibit those skills to a greater extent."

He won't be drawn into any comparisons with Australia or South Africa. "I hate being asked this," he says. "It's unfair and misleading because fitness is a generic term. We're stronger at some parameters, weaker at others. I'll just say that we're a lot better than we were five years ago." A brief pause, and then his eyes light up as he says, "I think there are a couple of overweight blokes in the Aussie side. You've got to put it into perspective. Cricket is about skill, fitness is secondary to that."

Ask Leipus how he would have dealt with someone like Arjuna Ranatunga, whose rotund physique was every trainer's nightmare, and he just smiles. "I think peer pressure might be one avenue you want to go down," he says. "We test certain fitness parameters every fortnight. It's like a competition within the team to see who's the best at a particular thing. They each get a copy of the results, so that they can see where they are with respect to the rest of the team. There's a bit of self-pride involved, which can be a very big motivator. "The person might not train with great intensity in the gym, but to just get them there is an achievement in itself. Sometimes you have to be happy with taking small steps."

He admits, however, that exceptions need to be made. "If the guy's still performing at an elite level, if he's one of the geniuses of the sport, you're hardly going to drop him because his fitness levels are poor. You just have to educate such players, and hopefully they will start to appreciate the benefits."

Few people knew anything about Leipus, or his work. That's how it should be, he tells you. "If a physio's in the news often, it means he's not doing his job properly," he says with a grin. The job has its unique pressures, and he's especially candid when he talks of the situation where a key team member is 50-50 before a big game or tour. "There's pressure from a lot of areas, from the media, from the selectors, the coach, the captain, the public, and sometimes from the player himself," he says. "You have to be objective with your interpretation of the injury, but whether he plays or not is ultimately a management decision. We look at the injury, the player's history, and the demands on them in the forthcoming match or tour. I have the casting vote, but have been overruled at times. And other times, I might have made a mistake.

"In retrospect, you can call them mistakes, but it's something that you can't predict happening. If it was a 50-50 call and the player was confident, you have to go with what the player says he can achieve. If he clears pre-match fitness tests and assessments, there's no reason to hold him back. At the international level, players have got to be accountable for their actions as well."

It's almost inevitable then that the conversation turns to Zaheer Khan and the injury concerns that have plagued him ever since he first broke down in Brisbane early last December. "Zaheer's a big concern to me," says Leipus. "He's one example of where we maybe did get it wrong. Again, at the time he did everything we asked him to do [before the Melbourne Test, where he broke down again]. That was very unfortunate.

"I read that he's been seeing Dennis Lillee and having his action corrected. Hopefully, by working with the experts, he can correct the misalignments which cause these injuries."

Dravid, who made special mention of Leipus after his epic innings at Adelaide and Rawalpindi, is the player who has left the deepest impression on him with his impeccable work ethic. "You just have to look at before and after photos to see the difference," says Leipus. "He's got a different physique now compared to a few years ago. His professionalism is a testament to the man. He'd be a role model to anyone in cricket, and in life for that matter, for the way he approaches it. There are other guys there as well, who are dedicated in what they do. But he stands out in my mind."

Leipus says he has always received enthusiastic backing from the Wright-Ganguly combination, despite occasional differences of opinion. "John and Sourav are wonderful guys to work with. Once John came on board and found his feet, and saw how I was struggling to hold down both jobs, he pulled more strings than I ever could to make the changes," says Leipus. "The leadership makes it a tighter unit. Without their presence, I don't think the team would be as good as it is today."

The much-maligned board also gets a pat on the back. "It [the BCCI] has been very proactive," he says. "The last four years, I've been running seminars at the NCA to develop the physios and the trainers around India who work in domestic cricket. The board tend to do what we ask them to."

The thorns on this particular rosebush come in the form of distance away from loved ones. "Time away from the family is the main strain," Leipus says. "I wasn't home for seven months on the trot last year. That's not healthy for home life, and it's not healthy for your own mind. Missing out on family life is stressful, though you have the joys of travel. I guess everything has a price."

He laughs when you ask him where home is. "Good question. My wife's just been transferred to London, so I'm living there now. We were in South Africa before, and Australia before that."

He scoffs at suggestions that those Australian roots might result in a conflict of interests when India host the men in baggy green. "Ultimately, I'm an Australian, which means I'm a very competitive person," he says. "People ask me who I'll support when we play Australia. That's a no-brainer. I'm obviously going to support India because that's where I've lived for the last five years. These players are my friends, and I want them to do the best they can."

Just like their physio.