Navnita Gautam becomes the first woman staff to be included in the Indian Premier League. Royal Challengers Bangalore announced the news of appointing Navnita as their Sports Massage Therapist.
Navnita will be closely working with Evan Speechly, the Head Physiotherapist and Basu Shanker, Strength and Conditioning Coach. Her responsibility will be performing specialized techniques pertaining to the preparation, motivation, overall supervision and all individual physical ailments relating to the team. She will be implementing therapy suitable for the team based on the conditions. Thus RCB became the first IPL franchise to add a female staff to their team.
Before the 13th edition of the league, RCB is in the mood of a revamp. They already added Mike Hesson as the team director and Simon Katich to take over as the head of the coaching staff. The recruitment of Navnita is also a part of these modifications.
Navnita’s appointment seemed to have pleased the Chairman of the team Sanjeev Churiwala. He termed this as a historic decision and said, “I am very pleased to be a part of this moment in history and another step in the right direction. The game has come a long way, in many ways, in terms of the Women’s Cricket Team and how many people are watching it, the interest was long due.”
The official statement by Sanjeev Churiwala further reflected how they try to keep pace with the trend. “Sport is a great enabler, but it is important to ensure that the principles of equity in participation also extends to its staffing bodies. Increasing participation and success by women in all sporting arenas have made this possible and we at RCB are very thrilled to have found great talent in Navnita.”