Yo-yo test before Afghanistan Test for Team India

Yo-yo test will be conducted before one-off Afghanistan Test match; India A teams heading to England too will be subjected to it.

The yo-yo test results will form part of the fitness report card that the support staff will be submitting to the board prior to the start of the season. (Source: AP/File)

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has asked all the players picked in the Test squad to face Afghanistan to report on June 8 to Bengaluru, where they will have to undergo mandatory yo-yo tests. The historic game against the latest entrants into the Test fold will be played in the same city from June 14. It will also kick off a lengthy run on the road for the Indian team that includes a two-and-a-half month tour of the British Isle, which kicks off with a couple of T20Is in Ireland later that month.

The yo-yo test results will form part of the fitness report card that the support staff will be submitting to the board prior to the start of the season. “The players will have to undergo a mandatory yo-yo test. Though the team has been already been picked for the lone Test against Afghanistan, it’s a procedure which each player has to follow. The players, who will be traveling to England too will have to undergo a yo-yo test in the coming weeks,” sources in the BCCI informed.

READ: “Even NBA teams don’t use yo-yo test”

It’s not just the Test players who’ll be put through the grind though. It’s learnt that even those who have been picked in the India A squads for England for the four-day matches and the tri-series pitting West Indies A respectively, too will have to undergo yo-yo-tests in Bengaluru on June 3 and 4.

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Following a hectic IPL schedule, and a mini 10-day break, the players are also expected to be part of a short camp at the National Cricket Academy.

It was late last year that the BCCI brought in a new protocol for selection to the Indian team, making it mandatory for every player to have a basic level of aerobic endurance prescribed by the Indian team management. BCCI CEO Rahul Johri had insisted then that even if a cricketer happens to be injury-free and in form, failure to meet the mandatory fitness parameters would result in him making way for a fitter player. All the Indian cricketers had been asked to achieve a basic score—a minimum standard set for an elite international sportsperson—in order to be eligible for selection.

The yo-yo test requires players to pace themselves methodically — starting with a modest jog to the eventual gut-busting sprint — as they shuttle back and forth between two rows of cones kept 20 metres apart. Each run needs to be timed with the three beeps that are played in the background. These are the signals for start, turn and finish. With the timing between the beeps constantly decreasing, each subsequent 40m circuit requires more speed. Getting beaten twice by the beep means the end of the test. The final score is determined by the laps completed and the speed gathered.

Earlier this year, some of the IPL franchises too had taken a leaf out of the BCCI’s book and introduced yo-yo tests for their players in the lead-up to the tournament. Yo-yo test results often depend on not just a player’s fitness levels but also his fatigue levels, and as players assemble in Bengaluru following a one-and-half-month trek around India on the IPL bandwagon, their eventual scores on the test should make for interesting reading.

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