The reason behind Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina not making the cut for the one-day squad touring Sri Lanka is their failure to clear the ‘Yo-Yo’ endurance test at the National Cricket Academy, reported PTI.
The Indian team regularly undergoes a series of fitness tests with the ‘Yo-Yo’ endurance test being the most important of them. The current Indian team is considered to be the fittest by a fair distance.
The acceptable ‘Yo-Yo’ score is 19.5 and upwards while skipper Virat Kohli scores around 21 in the test. However, Singh and Raina scored well below the permissible level of 19.5 with Singh barely managing to touch 16.
“The current team think tank, coach Ravi Shastri, skipper Virat Kohli and chairman of selectors MSK Prasad have made it clear that fitness standards are non-negotiable. On an average, the Australian cricketers score 21 in Yo-Yo test. Here Virat, Ravindra Jadeja, Manish Pandey regularly hit that score while others are either touching 19.5 or is hitting above that score,” said a BCCI official.
“In an earlier era, when the traditional beep test was in vogue, the Indian players of the 1990’s would have scored around 16 to 16.5 barring a few like Mohammed Azharuddin, Robin Singh or Ajay Jadeja. But now it’s different as the skipper himself is hitting the benchmark, which the Australian cricket team sets it,” the official added.
The ‘Yo-Yo’ test requires cones to be placed out in two lines with a distance of 20 meters. A player starts with his foot behind one of the lines, and begins running when instructed. Player continues running between the two lines, turning when signalled by the recorded beeps.
After each minute or so, the pace gets quicker. If the line is not reached in time, the player must run to the line turn and try to catch up with the pace within two more ‘beeps’. The test is stopped if the player fails to catch up with the pace within the two ends.
The entire process is software-based where the results are recorded.
