For young cricket fans in the Virat Kohli era, it would be impossible to imagine there were players like David Boon or Arjuna Ranatunga once upon a time. They were supremely talented and were fit in their own right. But that hardly matters in today's cut-throat competition in the cricket world.
Today, one might be a brilliant batsman or a bowler but if he is a slow mover on the field, he might not even get to warm the benches. Team India have had brilliant fielders—like Mohammed Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja, Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif, to name a few—in the past, but weren't a great fielding side collectively.
As captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni's insistence on easing out slow movers from the team caused much heartburn but it was a step in the right direction. Having fit and agile players in the team not only meant saving important runs while fielding, but converting those ones into twos, and twos into threes while batting. Stamina was the mantra. With fitness-freak Virat Kohli taking over the reins of Team India from Dhoni, the emphasis on fitness has doubled. The best part is that the captain himself has set the bar high.
Now, for Team India, fitness has become synonymous with Yo-Yo test. It is a modified version of the Leger Test, which was created by Luc Leger of the University of Montreal, in which the player had to run non-stop 20m-shuttles in 12 minutes. The current version was conceptualised by former Danish player and Juventus assistant coach Jens Bangsbo for footballers.
It is said that former cricketer Anil Kumble was the one to introduce this fitness test during his tenure as Team India coach. The Yo-Yo test is in the limelight now, after three players—Mohammed Shami, Ambati Rayudu and Sanju Samson—failed to make it to the Test, ODI and A teams for the India-England series. With the BCCI deciding to conduct fitness tests of players before they are picked in the national team, the Yo-Yo test is making the cricketers nervous. Well, some, at least.
In simple terms, the test requires a player to run between two cones set 20m apart. Sounds easy? In not-so-simple terms, there are three cones, let's say A,B and C—the distance between A and B is 5m and between B and C is 20m. The player starts running from cone B on a beep and has to reach C before the second beep. Then he has to return to the starting cone B before the third beep. This makes up one 'shuttle'. After returning to B, the player has to walk to A and back to B. This is the recovery stage for the player in between each shuttle, and he gets 10 seconds for it.
There are several speed levels, starting at 5. For levels 5 and 9, a player has to complete one shuttle each. From level 11 onwards, the number of shuttles start increasing—two shuttles for level 11, three for level 12, four for level 13, and eight shuttles for level 14 till 23. As the levels increase, the time between the beeps decreases, and so the player has to run faster. Team India's standard benchmark is set at 16:1 level, which might soon be changed to 16:5 or even 17—16 is the level and 5 after the colon is the number of shuttles the player has completed at that level before the end of the test. Pakistan, reportedly, have set it at 17:4, while New Zealand have the highest—20:1.
If the player fails to reach a cone before the beep, then he gets a 'warning'. He can run until he gets three warnings, and the level he has achieved then is the Yo-Yo test result. It is the ultimate test for a player's fitness and endurance.
The Indian team had a similar test during the early 2000s. The player had to cover 20m in a given time and return to the starting point before the beep. But it was not mandatory then.
While the stress on fitness of the players is appreciated, there have been voices against using it as a benchmark for final team selection. Former India cricketer, selector and coach Sandeep Patil says the players should be given a second chance. There is also the question of form—if a batsman is in tremendous form (read, Rayudu) but fails the Yo-Yo test, is it fair to drop him?
But the advocates of this fitness test vouch for the fact that any professional athlete can clear it quite easily and it isn't as difficult as it is made out to be. Also, age isn't much of a factor, going by the success of the Dhoni, 36, and even pacer Ashish Nehra, 39, and the failure of youngsters like Samson or Washington Sundar in the Yo-Yo test. Kohli, it is said, achieves level 21. Phew!
Probably, the only person who isn't affected by Kohli's exploits is Afghanistan's star wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Shahzad, who is quite comfortable with his physique. “I can hit longer sixes than Kohli. Then what's the need to follow a strict diet like him!”