The HPC is located in Talegaon, a small town roughly 150 kms away from Nagpur. | Photo Credit: Rajasthan Royals

Over the last decade or so, Talegaon, a tiny town located about 150 kms from Nagpur, has risen in prominence in Indian cricket.

This surge in attention is all thanks to the Indian Premier League side Rajasthan Royals’ High-Performance Centre (HPC) located there.

Founded in 2010, it is a year-round establishment with over 25 pitches and a multitude of training facilities, aimed to function as a training base for the Royals – a sort of high-end cricketing garage aimed to reset and fine-tune their players.

Rajasthan Royals performance coach Siddhartha Lahiri, though, described the HPC through a different technical spectrum during a press conference in Guwahati on Monday

“I call it the ChatGPT of world cricket,” said Lahiri, making no effort to mask his pride.

Lahiri didn’t go on to explain his analogy. But the idea was clear – it is an establishment where players are equipped with the resources to work out solutions to their problems.

What Lahiri made clear, though, was his belief that the facility was a point of difference for Royals.

“I think the huge advantage which we have is our high-performance centre, where we can absolutely have unrivalled practice. Players, with their calendars, playing at different times, it’s not always easy for them to get that practice.

“For us, that’s a huge advantage. Anytime, anyone can go to Talegaon. We have enough infrastructure at Talegaon for coaches, even if they are not present, to work with the players and help them improve,” added Lahiri.

The RR HPC’s functioning isn’t limited to the framework of the Indian Premier League. Royals have also used the facility to mimic conditions and manufacture match situations for their players to perform at almost any level.

Wicket-keeper batter Dhruv Jurel and opener Yashasvi Jaiswal have utilised the facility extensively to prepare for Test cricket. Former captain Sanju Samson and current skipper Riyan Parag have trained in Talegaon ahead of the domestic season. This is all in addition to their pre-IPL season practice camps.

At their disposal have been a wide range of pitches and an unrelenting battery of net bowlers, allowing them to train at high volume and variability.

“The best thing about Rajasthan Royals is that they have an academy, which is open for 12 months. You can go there, you can call them, and they conduct everything from net bowlers to everything else,” hailed Jurel in 2025, while speaking in the AB de Villiers’ 360 Show.

The latest player to be nourished extensively by the Royals HPC has been teenage prodigy Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who was signed by the side at the IPL 2025 auction for Rs. 1.10 crore.

The left-handed batter took IPL by storm last season, when he scored a stunning hundred against Gujarat Titans. The 15-year-old has started IPL 2026 in a similar flamboyant fashion, scoring 122 runs from the first three games at a strike rate of 248.97.

“Vaibhav spends a lot of time in our HPC,” said Lahiri. “So, we have different types of wickets, we have hundreds and hundreds of net bowlers. The practice which he gets there, he would not get anywhere else.”

“There is a sync for us between our analytics team and our coaching team. The work is going on all through the year, and we always bring in a player with that confidence. So, I think we have a cutting edge in that,” added Lahiri.

Published on Apr 08, 2026