On Sunday, New Year’s Day, the BCCI had its review meeting with BCCI chief Roger Binny, secretary Jay Shah, captain Rohit Sharma, coach Rahul Dravid, chief selector Chetan Sharma, and NCA head VVS Laxman in which they went over how the Indian team performed in the year 2022.
India had a terrible year as they lost the Test and ODI series in South Africa, lost the rescheduled fifth Test to England in Edgbaston and failed to make it to the finals of the Asia Cup 2022 and T20 World Cup 2022.
India also lost the ODI series in Bangladesh for the second consecutive time but finished the year by winning the Test series.
Apart from this, the year was very horrible when it comes to injuries as ace bowler Jasprit Bumrah missed the Asia Cup and the T20 World Cup, while Ravindra Jadeja missed part of the Asia Cup and the ICC event.
Questions were raised over the fitness of players as captain Rohit Sharma and a few others took regular breaks, while the likes of Deepak Chahar and Prasidh Krishna remained out of action due to persistent injuries. Bumrah was rushed back from his back injury, which led to him missing out on the mega event.
This has led to the BCCI deciding in the review meeting that the Yo-Yo test will be back as one of the selection parameters across formats. At the same, a new element, known as the DEXA scan, has also been added to the checklist that a cricketer needs to pass before entering the dressing room.
During the Virat Kohli era, the yo-yo test was a parameter for the fitness of players those achieving the highest scores were deemed super fit, while those with below-par numbers had to wait for their chance and work on their fitness.
Now the players will have to deal with a new hurdle named DEXA which needs to be crossed by a player to be selected.
DEXA is a scan that uses X-ray technology to measure bone strength. Also, this test talks about the possibility of any kind of fracture in the bone even before it develops. It is also called the bone density check and produces a special kind of X-ray that produces two types of beams – high energy and low energy.
Both these beams are passed through the bone and the number of X-rays emitted is measured thus, the density is found. The thickness of bones is also one of the important factors in DEXA scans.
It was also decided in the meeting that the NCA will work in tandem with the IPL franchises to monitor the Indian players’ workloads in the upcoming IPL 2023.
(News18 inputs)
