Fitness tests no longer seen as "selection criteria" for India's contracted players: Report
The National Cricket Academy (NCA) has reportedly scrapped fitness tests as a "selection criteria" for centrally contracted men's cricketers over the last two years. Instead, the focus has shifted to "injury preventive tests".
Fitness tests like the Yo-Yo test became an important factor for selection in the Ravi Shastri-Virat Kohli era when the team needed certain set standards.
Now, according to The Times of India, the NCA works with three "performas" - the National Fitness Training Criteria which consists of the Yo-Yo test and other such programs (it is supposed to be done every 12-16 weeks), the Performance Testing Battery (every six weeks) and Prevention Testing Battery (every two weeks) but these are only seen as "fitness measures" and not "selection criterion".
"The idea is that once a player is centrally contracted, he must have reached the desired level of fitness," a BCCI source told TOI. "With the amount of cricket and time they spend on the road, it is unreasonable for contracted players to undergo NFTC tests. So, the focus has shifted to injury prevention and performance tests. Team India strength and conditioning coach Soham Desai, along with physios Yogesh Parmar, Thulasi and Kamlesh Jain, has done a great job keeping the players in shape through the 2023 ODI World Cup and this T20 World Cup."
The injury prevention tests include simple exercises like squats, walking lunges and medicine ball throws, among others to judge whether a player is at risk of an injury by analyzing their postures.
India struggled with injuries in the last two ICC tournaments, with Jasprit Bumrah missing out in the 2022 T20 World Cup and Hardik Pandya getting injured midway through the 2023 World Cup.
The recently concluded 2024 title-winning T20 World Cup was the first time that there were no such major issues. The aforementioned source added that these new testing methods played a big role in this improvement.
Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid headed workload management program in 2022: Reports
The report also added that Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid sat together in February 2022 to finalize a pool of players with some like-to-like replacements for key names and a rotation program to manage workload. They asked the NCA coaches and physio to help them keep fit for major tournaments.
"The captain and coach had sat down with the strength and conditioning coach and the physios in February," TOI quoted a source as saying. "They had marked the India's schedule. Rohit and Dravid had given them a pool of players. The support staff was told to ensure those players are available and in the best shape for the T20 World Cup in 2022. The process continued for ODI World Cup in 2023 and now this T20 World Cup. Thus, each series was marked for the players to play in."
With Rohit retired from T20Is and Dravid concluding his coaching career, it remains to be seen how these processes are carried forward in the transition phase.