Indian cricket team selection: The issue with using a yo-yo fitness test cut-off

The BCCI had used the Yo-Yo test earlier, when fitness fanatic Virat Kohli was captain. The minimum permissible score was 17 then. We do not know yet if this will remain the cut-off mark. (Photo: Twitter/BCCI)

In its latest move, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has introduced the Yo-Yo physical endurance test as a criterion for selection in the Indian team. However, whether this will lead to better performance seems doubtful.

The Yo-Yo test was originally developed for footballers by Danish physiologist Jens Bangsbo. Markers are placed 20 metres apart. The athlete runs from one to the other and back at speeds dictated by the trainer. After every 40-metre run, he is allowed to rest for 10 seconds. Then he does the run once more. At regular intervals, the running speed is increased. This goes on till he is too tired to keep up with the required pace. The athlete is now scored on the basis of the number of levels he was able to clear.

In sports like football, 20 is considered a good score and 22 excellent. The BCCI had used the Yo-Yo test before, when fitness fanatic Virat Kohli was captain. The minimum permissible score was 17. We do not know yet if this will remain the cut-off mark or will be raised.

Even at that time, the BCCI’s use of the test had been strongly criticised by some ex-players, who argued that it is a physical endurance test unrelated to most of the skills that a cricketer needs to shine in the game. The test was subsequently dropped.

The Dexa scan is also being introduced for India team players. This provides data on bone density, body fat percentage, lean muscle mass and water content. The information can be used to design an athlete’s training programme to attain symmetrical muscle development.

The BCCI says that it has shortlisted 20 players for the 50-over World Cup later this year which India will be hosting. Based on their test results, each cricketer will be subjected to a personalized diet and physical training regime. This can certainly help.

But what about the Yo-Yo test?

Compared to a 90-minute World Cup football match, a cricket one-day international, even though it lasts six hours, is much less demanding on the body. Of course, fitness is key, but given that different players have different metabolisms, body compositions, lung capacity and other inherent physical attributes, how is it logical to judge that someone with a score of 16 will be less able to play top-notch cricket than someone with 17?

Most importantly, the essential qualities required to play good cricket are very different from mere physical stamina. No batter or bowler ever reached greatness by being fitter or stronger than the next man. In fact, most of their feats which seem to ostensibly do with physical prowess may have only a bit to do with it.

The fastest and most lethal bowlers are hardly built like an ox. Surya Kumar Yadav who hit the most sixes among all international cricketers last year, is no Hercules. If you did not know who Rishabh Pant—may he get well soon—is, you would just think of him as a tubby young man.

Those of us who have seen the great Sri Lankan batsman and captain Arjuna Ranatunga play cannot recall him ever sprinting to take a single. He pushed balls into vacant areas on the field and trotted across. Sometimes, he seemed to saunter. Both he and the outstanding Australian batsman David Boon sported what looked suspiciously like pot bellies.

Boon was also one of the sharpest short-leg fielders in cricket history—a position which requires very fast reflexes and agility. He also holds an interesting record, unbroken since 1989. He downed 52 cans of beer on a flight from Sydney to London, surpassing the landmark of 44 set some years earlier on the same route by legendary wicketkeeper Rodney Marsh.

More than two decades ago, I watched a conversation between Geoffrey Boycott, certianly one the greatest opening batters ever, and Ravi Shastri. New “scientific” physical training regimes had then just begun getting introduced in cricket. Boycott was contemptuous of them.

His reasoning was simple. A cricketer did not need the same physique as a footballer or basketball player to be good at his game, he said. Excellence in different sports demanded different physical strengths. Just play more cricket and practice relentlessly, all day, all year round, he recommended. The body will always respond in the right manner—the muscles that you will need to play the game well will develop by themselves. Boycott could not fathom how rigorous weight training or being able to run a marathon would help anyone become a better cricketer.

To be fair, the number of games that an international cricketer plays in a year has increased several time since Boycott’s day. Today’s batter and bowler require to be much fitter than a Sunil Gavaskar or a Shane Warne needed to be. So the BCCI has started assiduously implementing a policy of resting players and managing their workloads.

Yet, whether this has led to better performances is a matter of debate. A very tough physical regime, including the Yo-Yo test, was put in place after Kohli was appointed captain in 2014. But India has not won a single International Cricket Council tournament since 2013.

Fitness is obviously the very essence of all sports. And customised diet and training programmes are a good step forward. But making a very high physical threshold—which may not be so relevant to peak cricket performance—one of the criteria for selection, may not deliver any great benefits by itself. The problems that Indian cricket faces right now have to do with many issues unconnected to the players’ health. This is after all a game played as much in the mind as by the body.