The pre-season fitness test for India players is set to begin at the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence (CoE), and the newly introduced rugby-centric Bronco Test is going to push the cricketers to the limit. RevSportz reported earlier about the pre-season fitness test, with all the contracted players, including Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, needing to turn up. The tests will be conducted over the next fortnight.
The Bronco Test focuses on endurance. It’s a 1,200m shuttle test that calls for sustained aerobic output. It’s intense, and unlike the Yo-Yo Test, it doesn’t allow any rest period between sprints. With the players, especially fast bowlers, breaking down for fun, Adrian Le Roux, India’s strength and conditioning coach, has incorporated the Bronco Test into the roster, as he wants the players to have miles in their legs.
Paul Walsh, the former British diplomat, who left his job to empower underprivileged children and formed the Jungle Crows rugby team, is a good contact point to understand the Bronco Test in detail. Upon learning that the Indian cricketers will have to undergo it now, his first reaction was: “Virat Kohli would enjoy it.” Paul gave the lowdown. “The Bronco Test is better than Yo-Yo Test, for it’s wholesome and allows the fitness coach to have the overall fitness assessment,” he told RevSportz.
“Unlike the Yo-Yo Test, where a minimum score (17.1 for the Indian team) has to be achieved to pass it, the Bronco Test doesn’t have any cut-off mark. It’s a high-intensity aerobic running drill that measures a player’s stamina, along with speed and cardiovascular efficiency. Rugby had it. Now the other sports are moving towards it. Good that Indian cricket, too, is going that way.”
Le Roux, a South African sports scientist, has always been a hard taskmaster. He had issues with some high-profile players during his first stint with the Indian team between January 2002 and May 2003. Some cricketers found his fitness drills too demanding. In his current stint, he has been given complete authority over fitness matters. The cricketers will have to fall in line.
AB de Villiers, the South African master, recently spoke about the Bronco Test. “It’s one of the worst you can do,” he said on his YouTube channel. “Very clearly remember at the University of Pretoria, also at SuperSport Park, in the cold winter mornings of South Africa, in particular, where there’s not a lot of oxygen, the altitude here is, I think, 1500 meters above sea level. So, not a lot of oxygen, and those lungs would burn.”
The Indian team have players on the wrong side of 30, some of them with questionable fitness. A Ravindra Jadeja or a Kohli might not struggle, for they are still among the fittest cricketers in the side. But what about Rohit Sharma, 38 years old and never a fitness freak?
“Yes, Kohli won’t have problems, given how fit he is,” said Walsh. “In fact, he would enjoy it. Some other players might have to raise their fitness level.”
Rohit is on an individual programme at the moment. He is doing his cricket drills with Abhishek Nayar. “Rohit is working his socks off,” said someone in the know. Recently at a CEAT event, India’s ODI captain looked a lot leaner. By the time he turns up at the CoE, he expected to be ready to “burn his lungs”.
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