Gyms are handy for training specific muscle groups, but sport is not about strength in a specific muscle so much as it is about overall strength, coupled with the ability of the various muscle groups to work in tandem, Frazer points out.

Consider for example a fielder at say point going for the ball: As the bowler runs in, he is forward on the balls of his feet, both legs loaded, body perfectly balanced, and ready to go in either direction. Depending on where the ball is hit, he "loads" either his right leg or his left, and takes off - in the process bringing his Achilles, calf and knee muscles into immediate play. He has to dive, his arm has to stretch, fingers need to be strong to reel in hard hits, balance has to be good enough to enable him to spring to his feet, the torso, shoulder and arm have to come back into play for the throw, and all of this has to happen in sequence, as one continuous motion. On the first day of each batch, Chappell and Frazer bring in army trainers who walk the wards through the circuit, demonstrating the various obstacles and the skills needed to overcome them.

"One of the hardest things you can do is haul yourself up with two ropes," Chappell points out. "Initially your arms are at full stretch, and the pressure hits the tops of your shoulders; as you haul yourself up, you use the shoulder muscles, the biceps and triceps in quick succession, and then you start all over again, stretching for your next grip.

"In a gym, that is a minimum of three different exercises, one for each muscle group; here, you combine them in one fluid sequence. It is one of the best exercises you can do for upper body strength - and when you couple it with some others, like clambering over the wall for instance, doing the circuit is the equivalent to hours spent in the gym. The added advantage is, what you develop are functional muscles, not show muscles."

Every stage of the course has a point, a benefit, the two chief coaches point out - even slipping through a car tire suspended on a rope. Initially, your arms take the weight of the body as you lift your body off the ground; snapping in half at the waist, slipping your feet through the center of the tire works the hip and waist muscles and enhances agility; your hamstrings then come into play as you transfer the weight to your legs and let go your grip on the rope.

Sikandar, one of the trainees, points to one other benefit: "Most of us," he points out, "are from villages; gym ke liye hum kahaan jayenge? But all this we can do at home, too - we can tie ropes to trees in various ways for the various exercises; it is easy to find uneven ground and even pits, so we can create our own circuit."

The trainees then move to a level strip of turf, where hurdles have been placed in alternating heights - one high, one low. Clearing the first involves stretching the various leg muscles; to clear the second you have to bend low, working the thighs and calves; the back has to be held straight, which while improving posture and erasing the natural slump, works the core muscles. The high-low-high sequence thus alternates stretching and tightening - one aspect of training that is almost invariably neglected in gyms.

"At the end of the two weeks, we note down where each of the trainees are, physically," Chappell says. "When they leave, we give them goals, targets to work towards once they are back home. And starting in January, we bring each group back for another session - and when they do the circuit, it is easy for us to evaluate who has done his work well and who has shirked, how much each trainee has developed. There is no point to training that is confined to a camp - to be any real use, training has to be an ongoing, continuous process and that is what we are aiming towards here."