In their meeting on January 1st, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) decided to bring back the Yo-Yo fitness tests for Indian players, and also added a new Dexa test, making it mandatory for the players to clear these tests in order to be considered for selection of the national team.
In 2022, Indian cricket had been hit with injuries to a spate of players, including a number of key players which forced them to miss important tournaments. The likes of Bumrah and Jadeja missed the T20 World Cup, while Rohit Sharma, the captain, missed the Test series in South Africa and Bangladesh. Opener KL Rahul missed the crucial Edgbaston Test.
To ensure that there will be no compromise on fitness from hereon, the BCCI has decided to bring back the Yo-Yo test, which was part of the Kohli-Shastri era but hadn’t been used with strictness during the Rohit-Dravid tenure, and add the Dexa test too.
This could, however, impact the careers and selections of a few players, some already part of the setup while some aiming to get a national callup.
Here are 2 players whose careers could be impacted after the return of the yo-yo test:
Prithvi Shaw
Prithvi Shaw already has been in the bad books of the BCCI and the selectors. As a result of his indiscipline off the field, it is believed, Shaw has not been picked up even in the second-string Indian team for more than a year, despite performing brilliantly in domestic cricket and in the IPL.
The young aggressive opener was suspended for a doping violation in 2019. His fitness and lifestyle issues have been under scrutiny since then. A bigger dagger in the heart was when in last March he failed the yo-yo test. His score of less than 15 was far from BCCI’s prescribed minimum score of 16.5 for men.
If Shaw still doesn’t pull up his straps and focus on his fitness and individual choices, his international career may remain what would have been only if!
Sarfaraz Khan
It continues to pain the Indian cricket fans, and the cricketer himself, that Sarfaraz Khan hasn’t been given his maiden Test call-up yet, despite plundering big runs in domestic cricket: Sarfaraz Khan was the leading run-scorer in the last two Ranji Trophy seasons, ransacking big runs and centuries. His first-class average of 77 is too good to be ignored now, especially now that the Indian team is in a transition phase.
However, the 25-year-old from Mumbai has had fitness issues, and his body clearly has been not up to the standards. He burst onto the IPL scene with RCB in 2015, and since then the major criticism of him has been his body weight.
The Mumbai batter, though, hadn’t worked much on it early on. But in the last year, Sarfaraz Khan has been working hard, and a few months ago, he even claimed that he had lost 8-9 kilos and is working hard further. He must continue to work hard on his weight and fitness along with his batting skills, otherwise, with the re-introduction of the yo-yo test, he would still be not selected if he doesn’t clear the tests despite scoring domestic runs.
