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Who decided YoYo test is final measure of cricket fitness? Even the BCCI wants to know

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Asks who supervises, records, ensures fairness. And who authorised the test after team was selected.

Bengaluru: The booming voice and the belligerence in the tone was unmistakeable.

“I think it’s a combination of both ability and fitness. If you are fit, you can enhance that ability. That is one thing that has been emphasised on while designing the YoYo fitness test. And it is here to stay. Whoever thinks it’s a one-off thing, he is sadly mistaken and that person can take a walk,” Ravi Shastri, the Indian cricket team’s coach, thundered before the team’s departure to England.

“The philosophy is simple. You pass the test, you play. You don’t, you sit. So this is not going to go anywhere. The captain leads from the front, the selectors, the management are on the same page,” he said.

While it is great news for Indian cricket that these sets of stakeholders are all on the same page, there exists a world outside the Indian dressing room, and in that space a healthy debate has raged surrounding the YoYo test – whether it ought to be the only way to measure cricket fitness, how it has been implemented and if there is need to take a more careful look at the entire process.

The latest entrant into the fray is Anirudh Chaudhry, treasurer of the BCCI, who sent an eight-page letter, which ThePrint has accessed, to the Committee of Administrators seeking clarifications. The key questions raised include:

* I keep reading about the ‘YoYo Test’ being a criterion for selection into the Indian Team. Is this correct? If so, who took this decision and when and what is the rationale for the same?

* What is the exact nature of relation between the head physio at the NCA and the physio of the Indian cricket team? Who is responsible and accountable between the two for injured players’ rehabilitation?

* In the absence of any communication to me regarding any such policy of a qualifying score in a YoYo test being a prerequisite for selection to the Indian team, I will go with the assumption that somehow the reports of this being true are correct. If it is not so, this part of my communication may kindly be ignored:

  1. At which forum was the decision taken to have a minimum score on the YoYo test as a prerequisite for selection into a BCCI selected team?
  2. Who all were present in the meeting that decided this?
  3. Have minutes been recorded of the said meeting?
  4. Most importantly, once this decision was taken, to whom was the same communicated? Was it communicated to all First Class players in India? Was it communicated to all List A players in India? Was it communicated to all State Cricket Associations to communicate to their players?

* As per my understanding, there are various parameters for optimum fitness. i.e. speed, strength endurance, flexibility, agility, explosive strength, reaction tests, aerobic fitness. Is it the case that we are testing only for aerobic fitness and neglecting the rest of the parameters?

* Was it discussed that in the case of a tour where a player suffers an injury, the selectors may be required to select a replacement in a hurry and it may not be possible to conduct YoYo tests of all players available for selection and who are also match fit? Was there a scope for exemptions to be made in extraneous circumstances?

* What happens if the best player of the team has a mild niggle in the knee but can play the Test match that starts in two days but because of the knee niggle, he is not in a position to or is not advised to take a YoYo test at all?

* Is the player required to wait for a period of six weeks before he is allowed to take another YoYo test by the organisation? If so, is there any rationale for this?

* Is every YoYo test conducted in a fair, transparent and objective manner? Is there any evidence that is maintained to demonstrate that in the case of each test, the distance between each cone was indeed 20 m and there has been no deviation therefrom? How is this ensured?

While Chaudhry’s line of questioning, not surprising given his background as a lawyer and his hands-on experience of running the Haryana Cricket Association, is by far the most exhaustive to emerge so far, others, who are experts in the field of cricket fitness have already spoken up.

“YoYo is one aspect of fitness testing and I can’t understand how it can be the only measure of a cricketer’s fitness, especially given that it was designed primarily for use in soccer,” said Ramji Srinivasan, a former trainer of the Indian team.

“Sprinting and agility are not rocket science for players at this level but the test has to be standardised. The indoor-outdoor temperature and the time of the drill (morning or noon) are crucial,” said Srinivasan. “Also, how has the number 16.1 been decided on? Why is that some kind of state secret? I’m sure those in the Indian set up know that the Australians and others have readings of nearly 19.”

Interestingly, Cricket Australia, which was the first to use the YoYo test, has now discontinued the practice. Instead Australia’s cricketers are tested in a combination of a timed 2 km run, sprints and strength work.

John Gloster, the Australian fitness expert who has also worked with the Indian team, raises a slightly different point.

“When you need to test for explosive speed, such as in Twenty20 cricket, YoYo may be a good way to go. But is it really the best way to judge a player’s suitability for longer forms of the game? I don’t think so,” said Gloster.

Gloster introduced GPS tracker in the Rajasthan Royals dressing-room this IPL. “We got accurate, real-time information on players’ workloads, the different demands on slow bowlers, fast bowlers, batsmen, fielders …that gives us actual data to work with. We found that helped us. Is there any one single way to determine fitness? Probably not.”

Even in the absence of these voices, there are questions about the YoYo test that must be asked.

If Mohammad Shami, who was in the Indian team in the last Test series (South Africa in January) it played, failed the YoYo test after the IPL, was it solely his responsibility? Did the Indian team’s support staff give him a regimen to follow that would help lift him to the 16.1-mark?

The case of Ambati Rayudu, who was selected before the YoYo test and then subsequently left out, was called a one-off by Saba Karim, the BCCI’s general manager of cricket operations. If that is indeed true, and tests were usually conducted well before selection, how would trainers know which players in India to test at any given point of time?

Sanju Samson’s failed YoYo test has denied him the opportunity to tour England with the India A team: Is the failure to reach 16.1 in the YoYo test so serious a transgression that it should cost him the opportunity to learn in English conditions and gain exposure that will help the Indian team if he is selected at the highest level in the future?

Vinod Rai, the chairman of the BCCI’s Committee of Administrators, has told The Sunday Express that asking the players to undertake the YoYo test after their selection to the national team was like putting “the cart before the horse”, and that this was a one-off incident and wouldn’t be repeated.

The bottom line is this: Should the YoYo test be deployed as a tool that helps players measure, maintain and manage their fitness levels, or as an instrument that is used to drop players?

Read the full text of Anirudh Chaudhry’s letter here.

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1 COMMENT

  1. I have been following Indian cricket since my school days for over 5-6 decades but suddenly heard about yo-yo test only about 6 months or a yr ago.While fitness is paramount but introduction of any new system have to be done in a transparent manner to look fair. Players should not feel Yo-Yo test is being used by management to favor or exclude based on likes and dislikes.To that extent BCCI must go public with the genesis and since when this test was started as criteria for rejecting players on the grounds of fitness.

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