Sachin Tendulkar believes yo-yo test should not be mandatory while selecting players

Recently, yo-yo test was made a mandatory criteria for determining the selection of a player in the Indian team. Many players had been dropped from the team owing to their flunking the test and there has been a continuous debate after that to justify the implementation of the test. Sachin Tendulkar is of the opinion that while a certain level of standard should be maintained by the players during the yo-yo test but the test should not have the sole authority of determining the selection procedure. He believes there are many other factors that need to be considered apart from fitness.

“I feel certain fielding standards are critical. Now I haven’t done the Yo-Yo Test. We had the beep test, which is more or less similar. But that shouldn’t be the only criterion. It should be a mixture of fitness and also looking at the ability of a player. I think Yo-Yo test is important but also looking at the ability of the player and how fit or unfit the player is,” said Tendulkar.

Ambati Rayudu and Sanju Samson had been dropped from the national team and the India A Squad respectively as they failed to clear the test. In fact, Rayudu was the in-form man coming into as he had significantly contributed in piloting Chennai Super Kings to the title. Further, Mohammed Shami was also prevented from playing in the one-off Test against Afghanistan, owing to similar flunking of the yo-yo test.

Tendulkar has mentioned that while Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal were successful against England, bowlers Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali seemed to have more efficiency in disrupting the flow of Indian batsmen.

“If it continues to be like this — and the kind of surfaces we have seen even in the ODIs — someone like Kuldeep, Chahal and their leg-spinner (Adil Rashid) were able to get some help off the surface. So, if the surfaces are going to be like that in a five-day game, then our spinners are surely in the game. They (England) will hurt Indian batters. But if they are not going to give spinner-friendly surfaces, then it’s going to be a competition between our batting and their batting. We have good depth in our batting. Thus, on a decent surface, it will be difficult to get our batting out,” said Tendulkar.

“So, I would say one has to be patient and balanced but that doesn’t mean you are not supposed to make any changes. One should make changes if the situation demands those changes but otherwise I feel it’s always nice to have that stability and letting the players know that there aren’t going to be too many unnecessary changes,” he added.