Virat Kohli was granted special permission by the Board of Control for Cricket in India to undergo his mandatory pre-season fitness test in London while his team-mates were required to complete their tests at the BCCI's Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru last week.
Test Skipper Shubman Gill, ODI Captain Rohit Sharma, Mohammed Siraj, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Washington Sundar and Shardul Thakur successfully completed their pre-season fitness tests at the CoE on Sunday.
Apart from the now standard Yo-Yo test, a DXA Scan, which is a simplified method to test bone density, was also conducted during the fitness test.
Kohli, who is currently based in London with wife Anushka Sharma and their two children, was the only player permitted to conduct his fitness test outside India, according to a report in Dainik Jagran newspaper.
'Definitely, he would have taken BCCI's approval to undergo his fitness test in London,' a BCCI official told the newspaper.
The decision to allow Kohli to complete his fitness in London has sparked a debate within the cricketing circles on whether this was a one-off allowance to a player of his stature or will similar flexibility be granted to other players travelling overseas in the future.
The second round of the fitness tests will be conducted later this month for players returning from injuries including Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Akash Deep and K L Rahul.
Following a spate of injuries in the last few years, the BCCI and the team management have taken a strict view on players' fitness. With the increased workload on the players because of the busy cricketing schedule, the BCCI has made it mandatory for the players to undergo fitness tests before every major tournament.
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