Vinod Rai, the chief of Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administration (CoA), has made it clear that it is up to Indian team management to decide whether they want to make yo-yo test results public or not, as it is not his domain.

Yo-Yo fitness test in last few days is being debated by the cricket fraternity and experts after the trio of — Sanju Samson, Mohammed Shami and Ambati Rayudu — was dropped from Indian squad for failing the test. Since, many cricket experts have become vocal about why fitness test is becoming mandatory selection criterion and players’ form is becoming less important. There are also a few people who are asking the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to make the results of this test public so that the transparency is maintained.

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Talking to Cricketnext, Vinod Rai said, “See, that is for the team management to decide if they wish to release the results of the test conducted on the players. It is not my domain and I don’t wish to get into that.”

Rai’s statement came after, BCCI treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry had written a letter to Rai, asking about the yo-yo test becoming a parameter for selection in the Indian squad.

“At which forum was the decision taken to have a minimum score on the Yo-Yo test as a prerequisite for selection into a BCCI-selected team? Who all were present in the meeting that decided this? Have minutes been recorded of the said meeting? If the player has had an increased workload in the past few weeks and is somewhat fatigued, would he not be scoring less on the recovery tests?” a portion of the Anirudh Chaudhry’s letter read.

Speaking about Anirudh Chaudhry’s letter, Rai asked General Manager Cricket Operations Saba Karim to give a presentation on how the test functions. “It wasn’t really a presentation. It was an internal discussion and not something I wish to talk about.”

However, what makes the yo-yo controversy even more interesting is India’s head coach Ravi Shastri’s statement at the pre-departure conference. “The philosophy regarding the yo-yo test is very simple. You pass you play. You fail, you sail. Whosoever thinks that it is a one-off thing can take a walk. It is not going to go anywhere. The captain leads from the front, the selectors and the entire team management are on the same page.” Ravi Shastri said.

Indian skipper Virat Kohli also echoed Shastri’s statement and said, “People might not be able to see a small thing that happens when you play a particular Test match but I think that makes a massive difference. We are a team that wants to travel well. Jasprit Bumrah was bowling 144 kmph in his last spell during the final Test. That’s when one’s fitness comes in. When you have people who are fit, hungry and ready, then you are not only competing but also winning matches.”

“Either you get emotional and let go (chuck) a policy, or take hard calls and move ahead with the system. All those things have come together nicely and we are looking forward towards playing some real hard cricket. We are looking forward towards playing difficult cricket as that’s the only way we will be able to test our self as a team,” Virat Kohli concluded.