Over the last few years, the Indian cricket team has considered passing the yo-yo test as a selection criteria. Several big names have failed to clear this test in the past and missed a place in the Indian squad. The latest addition to this list were Varun Chakravarthy and Rahul Tewatia who couldn’t clear the test ahead of the recently-concluded India vs England T20I series. While Tewatia managed to make it in the second attempt and joined the squad, Chakravarthy still could not.
Sharing his opinion on this selection criterion, former Indian opener Virender Sehwag said that skills should be preferred over yo-yo tests.
Sehwag’s statement came while responding to a fan’s question who had asked if Hardik Pandya was unfit to bowl, why did the team management play him in the T20Is and why Chakravarthy didn’t get a chance.
“Wasn’t fitness the no.1 criteria?” – the user wanted to know.
Sehwag further said if the yo-yo test existed in his playing days, the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman might not have been able to make it through. He revealed that the great cricketers often missed the desired mark of 12.5 in the beep test that was conducted during their playing days.
“I want to tell you one thing, here we are talking about yo-yo Test, Hardik Pandya doesn’t have issues with running, he has issues with workload because of his bowling. However, Ashwin and (Varun) Chakravarthy, on the other hand, haven’t cleared the yo-yo Test, that’s why they aren’t here. But I won’t agree with all of this, if these criteria existed before, then the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly wouldn’t have passed it. I have never seen them pass the beep test. They always fell short of the 12.5 mark,” Sehwag told Cricbuzz.
While Indian skipper Virat Kohli has previously spoken on the importance of the fitness test, Sehwag disagrees with it and feels that fitness is something which can be enhanced over time.
“Skill is important, today if you are playing a fit team but don’t have the skills, then you would ultimately end up losing. Play them based on their skills, slowly you can improve their fitness over time but if is yo-yo criteria is applied straight away, then the talks are different. If a player can field and bowl 10 overs, that should be enough, we shouldn’t be concerned about the other things,” Sehwag said.
