Mumbai, April 15 -- The one person Praful Hinge thanked while accepting the Player of the match award after his life-changing spell of fast bowling on IPL debut was Naveen Babu, the physio at the MRF pace foundation in Chennai with whom the Nagpur pacer had spent six months, undergoing rehab from a stress fracture to his back. A physio is indeed a fast bowler's best friend. Back in 2023, forget the IPL stage, Hinge hadn't even started playing for his state team. He was just an upcoming U-23 Vidarbha talent; untapped, raw, and broken both physically and mentally with his back injury. From the high of being picked for the foundation and prospects of working with Glenn McGrath, Hinge was staring at months of rehab. "Rehabs can be long and boring. Praful was patient and determined. For the first six weeks he had to go back home and rest. After that I had every session planned for him based on his progression with milestones set for each phase," Naveen Babu recalls. "Once fully fit, he went on to become the highest wicket-taker in U23s and got selected for the Indian Emerging team." "Rehab is a team work between the physio, S&C, psychologist, yoga trainer, analyst and the coaches," said Ramji Srinivasan, former Indian Strength and Conditioning coach, who was among MRF's support staff to have worked with Hinge. "Once he had regained enough strength, all we did was fine tune his bowling action," said M Senthilnathan, MRF head coach. "He was trying to muscle the ball and the body was falling. We ensured he used his non- bowling arm more. This change does not come in a day, it takes overs and overs to achieve." What also helped Hinge was later getting to work with Varun Aaron who had spent considerable time at the foundation as a trainee. Aaron, best known for his express pace, had been constantly troubled by injuries. Armed with first-hand knowledge sharing from his Sunrisers Hyderabad bowling coach, Hinge delivered the triple-wicket over on IPL debut - the best ever first over showing by a pacer in IPL history. On the speed gun, Hinge's three dismissals clocked 139.8kph (Vaibhav Sooryavanshi), 140.8kph (Dhruv Jurel) and 139.3kph (Lhuan-dre Pretorius). No wonder Hinge's Insta handle is named 'prafulhinge_140'. Not express pace, but fast enough with his ability to extract seam movement from a good length. Hinge was just the mode of bowler SRH were missing in captain Pat Cummins' absence. Alongside Hinge, Monday night also belonged to their other debutant Sakib Hussain and Sri Lankan Eshan Malinga. Incidentally, the pace trio have all had stints at the MRF pace foundation. Together they lapped up all the 10 RR wickets in batter-friendly conditions on Monday. In the 90s and the 2000s, the pace foundation was the sole scientific centre that acted as a feeder line to bolster India's fast bowling stocks. Two of India's greatest Javagal Srinath and Zaheer Khan took early learnings at the Chennai centre under Dennis Lillee. But Hinge's case shows, even today, before fast bowlers make the targeted list and are tended to at BCCI's Centre of Excellence, the Chennai facility serves as a great place to upskill and repair....