Harshit Rana was cleared by the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence at 97kg. Not long afterwards, the Indian team management reportedly considered him four kilograms overweight and sent him back to Bengaluru after his body broke down on the tour of England. Mohammed Siraj encountered the same system from the opposite direction. One of India’s most durable fast bowlers reached the CoE before the Sri Lanka tour and was reportedly caught unprepared by revised fitness requirements only just communicated to contracted players.
Then there was Jasprit Bumrah. Initially named in the Test squad subject to fitness clearance, he remained troubled by the knee injury sustained in England and was eventually ruled out of the Sri Lanka series.
India captain Shubman Gill had already made the larger problem public. After a depleted side lost the ODI series decider at Lord’s, Gill said repeated injuries were preventing India from completing even short bilateral assignments with their intended combination. “As a group we need to improve our fitness,” he said, looking towards an ODI World Cup that could demand 11 consecutive matches. Together, these episodes describe a fitness structure in which the tests, rehabilitation forecasts and final clearances have not always spoken the same language.
India did not have a shortage of tests
Indian cricket has hardly ignored fitness. India has used the Yo-Yo test, the two-kilometre time trial and, more recently, under the strength and conditioning coach Adrian le Roux, the Bronco test.
The Bronco requires repeated 20m, 40m and 60m shuttles across five uninterrupted sets. The total distance is 1,200 metres, but the turns and accelerations make it a different examination from a continuous 2K run. The Yo-Yo test measures the ability to repeat high-intensity efforts with short recovery periods.
Each test can reveal something useful. None can independently certify complete readiness for international cricket. A player may record an acceptable endurance score while carrying more weight than the team considers ideal. Another may possess excellent match endurance but perform below his best in a test he has not trained for. Neither result, viewed alone, measures body composition, bowling load, joint stress, movement efficiency, previous injury or recovery across a tour.
That distinction is crucial to Rana’s case. His clearance at 97kg does not prove that running tests are meaningless, nor does being heavier automatically establish that a player is unfit. It instead raises the more damaging question of what the clearance actually covered.
According to a detailed Times of India report, the CoE had been using customised Bronco targets rather than a compulsory baseline, with some senior players allegedly receiving more comfortable parameters. Rana and Nitish Kumar Reddy were among those reportedly cleared as the centre attempted to meet the team management’s personnel requirements. The CoE has now moved towards a common Bronco target of approximately five minutes 15 seconds to five minutes 20 seconds, alongside a nine-to-ten-minute range for the 2K run. Standardisation may make the process fairer. It cannot repair a fragmented system by itself.
Siraj exposes the communication failure
Siraj’s experience should not be mistaken for evidence of poor conditioning. His career has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to absorb substantial fast-bowling workloads. The issue was that an established Test player reportedly encountered a sudden programme before leaving for Sri Lanka, while the base parameters were only then being distributed.
Fitness testing cannot operate like a surprise examination. Preparation for repeated shuttle running differs from preparation for a timed continuous run. If players do not know the benchmark or when it will be assessed, the result tests familiarity almost as much as fitness.
Rana and Siraj therefore expose opposite defects. One was cleared under standards that appear to have been flexible; the other met revised demands before the new standards had been properly embedded. In one case, clearance lacked clarity. In the other, testing lacked preparation.
Bumrah’s withdrawal adds a third dimension: uncertainty around rehabilitation forecasting. The BCCI confirmed that he had not fully recovered from his left-knee injury. Wider reporting says selectors and team management had initially expected him to be available for the opening Test. Recovery dates can change, but repeated gaps between expectation and availability erode trust.
That is why the scrutiny surrounding India physio Kamlesh Jain and the CoE matters. Jain has reportedly been questioned over recurring breakdowns, frequent cramping and a broader decline in mobility and physical standards. Gill and head coach Gautam Gambhir are also reported to be frustrated by their inability to field a full-strength XI.
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It would be simplistic to blame one physio for every injury. Fast bowling is intrinsically destructive, schedules are crowded, and some injuries are unavoidable. The medical operation also extends beyond Jain to the CoE, doctors, trainers, selectors and team management. Accountability, however, cannot disappear inside that complexity. Someone must decide when a player is ready, challenge a senior cricketer who falls short, and ensure the same definition of fitness travels from Bengaluru to the dressing room.
India’s problem is not whether Bronco is superior to Yo-Yo, or whether a 2K run should accompany both. It is whether the entire chain agrees on what those results mean. Rana’s weight, Siraj’s surprise and Bumrah’s delayed return have exposed different cracks in that chain. The BCCI can publish new numbers and demand harder running, but unless testing, rehabilitation, workload management and selection are integrated, the next fitness certificate may still answer only part of the question.