While talking about his tenure at the helm of the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) Centre of Excellence (CoE), former India batter VVS Laxman on Sunday opined on the transition to world-class infrastructure and the Indian women’s team’s historic 2025 ODI World Cup triumph as the ultimate highlights of his stint as well.
“First, realising and being part of the vision converted into actual execution has been the highlight. Because we were operating from that facility at the Chinnaswamy, which was great, and it still contributed towards a lot of cricketers. But this is an unbelievable world-class infrastructure. So I was part of that transition. The second thing was the development of a lot of young cricketers. Again, it’s not the trophies you win. Trophies are a byproduct of what systems, the processes you set. Those systems and the processes are something which is in your control and you can focus in an objective way, understanding whether those processes are working or not working. The trophies are a byproduct of the hard work and the processes and systems you put in place,” said Laxman in a press conference on Sunday.
Sharing his deep connection with women’s cricket, VVS Laxman also expressed immense pride in the team’s maiden ODI World Cup win, and recalled the emotional moment when head coach Amol Muzumdar and captain Harmanpreet Kaur invited him to join the winning celebrations as well.
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“The third one is understanding and being involved with women’s cricket. I think that for me was something out of my comfort zone, and out of my understanding. I think in the last four and a half years, the amount of involvement I got into women’s cricket is something which I will treasure. In fact, Amol and Harman wanted me to be there on the ground when we won the World Cup. I was there in the BCCI box and I enjoyed watching from there – the whole celebration. I was probably one of the last ones to leave because, again, any vision you set in, any goal or ambition you establish, and if that bears the fruit, you feel really happy about it. So I think Indian women’s team winning the World Cup was probably the high point,” he again shared.
“So there are a lot of high points. Actually, watching the youngsters as with this magnitude of the infrastructure, from April to September, the entire infrastructure of such a big scale is filled with players. In that, watching right from under-16, under-15 players to your elite contracted players like Harman, Indian women’s team and men’s team and targeted players coming and to see them work on their game, to see them get better each and every day, it can’t be more meaningful than what I’ve experienced,” he further added.
“So I think that, again, is a high point and I think all these players, all these activities will only strengthen Indian cricket and all these players, I’m sure, will get a lot more laurels to Indian cricket and try to be the best players they can be and we always aim to be the best team in world cricket,” he concluded.
