Ironically enough, it was during Kohli’s tenure as India captain – a period when he placed a huge premium on fitness of cricketers and led by example – that the Yo-Yo test was introduced to judge the fitness levels of cricketers. It’s an aerobic endurance fitness test that involves running between markers placed 20 metres apart apart at increasing speeds. The score for ‘passing’ the test, initially kept at 16.1, was later raised at 16.5 and over a period of time, it became a nightmare for those lacking the right work ethic.
There were a number of international cricketers who failed to meet the cut-off mark and were dropped from the squad – namely Mohammed Shami, Varun Chakravarthy, Ambati Rayudu and Sanju Samson during Kohli’s tenure. They went on to ‘improve’ their marks and returned to the squad but news of their failure in the Yo-Yo test was hardly a well-kept secret then.
The test, discarded for a while, was re-introduced along with the Dexa test (bone scan) since the beginning of 2023 – ostensibly with an eye towards assessment of the players’ fitness with the 2023 World Cup in mind. The Indian cricket team, incidentally, had been suffering heavily with fitness woes with the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer and Prasiddh Krishna returning the squad for the Asia Cup after varying degree of lay-offs.
