3 REASONS WHY YO-YO TEST SHOULD BE A MANDATORY CRITERION FOR INDIAN TEAM SELECTION

The life of a cricketer is never as easy it seems to the public. They have to perform under pressure in 1 or more formats, face the wrath of the media and public during failures, and most importantly deal with fitness issues.

Fitness has always been a very important aspect of any cricketer who wants to produce good results on a consistent basis, more so for modern players. A captain would most often want players who can serve as long-term options and be fit in the long run, which makes fitness an important parameter for team selection.

A popular fitness test employed in the last few years in order to test the players’ fitness is the Yo-Yo test. Many teams across the world, including India, use this test to measure and set fitness benchmarks for players to attain, in order to be eligible for national team selection.

In recent times, there has been so much discussion on this topic with Indian fans divided into 2 major sections. One which believes that the Yo-Yo test is too harsh on players and that it doesn’t take the player’s talent into consideration during team selection, and the other section which supports the decision to have fitness as a primary factor for team selection.

With lots of cricket being played these days, fitness is a mandatory aspect for the players to cope up with the demands of international and league cricket . Having said that, let us see why fitness (Yo-Yo test) should be a mandatory criterion for team selection.

---

FIRSTLY, WHAT IS THE YO-YO TEST?

The highly debated Yo-Yo test

The Yo-Yo test is basically a sprinting test where players have to run from one cone to another, separated by 20 meters before a beep and then return back to the first cone within the next beep. This double sprint is called a ‘shuttle’.

If the player doesn’t make it to the cone before that beep, he gets a warning and 3 of those means the end of the test. The first level would have just one shuttle, but subsequent levels would have 2, 3, 4 shuttles and so on. As the levels get tougher, the time given to complete each shuttle keeps decreasing.

From level 14 till 23 (maximum level), there are 8 shuttles per level. In between shuttles, a player gets 10 seconds to recover. The benchmark set for Indian team is 16:1, which means that the player has to complete at least the first shuttle of level 16.

This is actually lower compared to the minimum levels of 17:4, 19, 20:1 set by other countries like Pakistan, West Indies and New Zealand respectively. Having known the basic outline of the test, let us move on to justify the requirement of the test for the players.

1. TESTS THE ABILITY OF A BATSMAN TO RUN QUICK SINGLES/DOUBLES CONSISTENTLY

Kohli and Pandey had set new benchmarks for the test last year

For a modern day batsman, anything has become possible. Many existing records have been broken and new benchmarks of batting have been set. With the current generation of ODI batsmen maximizing run scoring in a big way, just scoring a boundary or two every over won’t be enough. Even off the remaining balls they should keep looking to get the quick singles, doubles.

If they need to play long innings, they’ll have to keep doing this consistently, sometimes even after reaching a century. A quick batsman would take about 2-3 seconds to take a quick run, get rest for a few seconds and then get ready for the next ball.

In the higher levels of the Yo-Yo tests, one has to cover 20 meters in about the same time and return back to finish a shuttle. Effectively, these tests would enable batsmen to become fitter and run these quick runs more often.

A batsman who is quite talented as a stroke-maker but having failed the Yo-Yo test would turn out to be a liability for the team because he would become tired to take those quick runs after a while and would have to rely only on his boundary-scoring ability to make up for it. In this quest, there is a good chance of him getting out after getting a good start which is definitely not what the team needs. They need a batsman who can run well even after being at the crease for 2 hours and bring runs for the team.

The likes of Kohli, Williamson, who are always looking to steal quick runs from the opposition, can attribute their success in a way to their fitness levels too. Making Yo-Yo test a mandatory selection criterion makes talented batsmen place high priority on their fitness, which is also required to be successful today.

2. DETERMINES THE VALUE OF THE PLAYER IN THE FIELD

Nehra scored 18.5 last year in the test at the age of 38

In the previous point, we had mentioned about batsmen taking runs against the fielders. Now just reverse the situation. You are a fielder and you have to stop the batsmen from taking quick runs against you. For that you must be able to get off the blocks quickly and sprint towards the ball and hopefully create confusion amidst the batsmen.

Fielding in the outfield is a much tougher job, as the fielder would have to stop the boundaries as well as the doubles. In order to stop boundaries, you’ll again have to be quick as a fielder and cover good ground. If you aren’t quick enough in both the above cases, batsmen would even after a point look to target you in the field having spotted you as a slow mover in the field.

When taking running catches too, the speed becomes an important factor. A fitter player would be able to cover more ground and more often than not, increase his chances of completing the catch. There would also be a couple of average fielders in the team, mostly fast bowlers, who would field at third-man or fine-leg. Even for them, fitness would be important because they would have to run around saving runs immediately after an energy-sapping over.

So, in many ways, the Yo-Yo test would determine whether the player would be a good asset in the field or not. The importance of having quick fielders in the Indian team was first given high priority by Dhoni, during his famous exclusion of 3 big names from the team in early 2008. Since then, the level of Indian fielding has gone up tremendously.

3. HANDLING THE STRESS OF THE JAM-PACKED SCHEDULE OVER THE NEXT 4-YEAR CYCLE

India have a packed schedule ahead

Over the next 4-year cycle, India play the maximum number of matches across all formats (159) followed by WI’s 146. The rest all are quite some margin behind these 2 teams.

Also, India play the maximum T20s, second-highest number of ODIs and third-highest number of test matches among the top 12 teams. With such a hectic schedule ahead for the men in blue, Kohli rightly wants his main players to be up and ready to endure the fitness challenges of the next few years.

With quite a few of the players being part of the regular team in more than 1 format, the workload on them is going to be quite high. With the World Cup, World T20 and the test championship also coming up in the coming 2 years, India would want their main players to be available for most of the matches, which can happen only if they have very high fitness levels. So, India and BCCI are very much entitled to have fitness as a major selection-deciding parameter.

But, does passing the Yo-Yo test guarantee a place in the Indian team? No. It only makes a player eligible for selection with performances and form come into the picture later. But if one fails the test, he can be rejected from the team without a second thought.

Though the test seems quite harsh on some players who have put in good performances but failed the test, the truth is that the modern game demands so much from the player physically. And the players have to be up to the task if they have to succeed at the highest level. By placing such high priority to fitness levels, Team India and Virat Kohli are on the right track towards achieving excellence across all formats of the game.