Says CWI Director of Cricket, Jimmy Adams
Cricket West Indies’ Director of Cricket, Jimmy Adams has stated that the fitness standards implemented by the Administration is nonnegotiable but are sometimes tailored for players under different circumstances.
Adams spoke to this publication at the National Stadium on Wednesday, following the exclusion of Evin Lewis, who finished West Indies’ last series as the leading run scorer and Shimron Hetmyer from the Caribbean unit to face Sri Lanka after failing their fitness test.
“The lads have unfortunately not met the minimum standard which we had communicated to them sometime back so hopefully we can get them up to the standard as soon as possible,” he said.
When quizzed on balancing performance and passing the fitness test Adams stated, “It is non-negotiable, it goes hand in hand one of the example I use is that the whole issue of a player being fit is to reduce injuries and this is one of the areas we have struggled with in the past.”
The Director of Cricket explained, “Right now we have tied it [minimum fitness standard] to 40 on the yo-yo which is an intermittent sort of system…”
However, Adams informed, “There are going to be players for whatever reasons who will be given exemptions of that minimum target and they will be given through the medical panel, their target that they will work with but the process will not be any different so whatever target, they will be looking to build on that just as anybody will be looking to improve theirs…There are people with medical issues that we have to give exemptions to, it could be ankles, it could be knees and stuff like that that could impact them negatively when they are given the test.”
On the other hand, while persons would be given a revised target, players may be set higher standards than the minimum.
“The minimum target for selection is 40 but you could have a personal target of 47, one does not get rid of the other as we still move them forward and above 50…since we will be inching people towards that personally but then there is across the board the minimum standard for selection which we feel anybody who is playing professionally at this level should be able to achieve,” he relayed.
The former West Indies skipper also noted, “It is something that has been implemented even at the franchise…it came down to the franchise level at the last fitness test and there were measures for those who failed to meet those standards.”
The 52-year-old went on to posit, “We can’t afford to have our best players not being on the park because of the fitness levels so I’m looking forward to these lads correcting their fitness levels to where it should be and out of that we can keep them on the park for longer.”
Adams recollected that the policy was one expected to be implemented back in 2018 but due to the changing of selection panels and coaches, it only became possible now with the right systems in place.
“There has always been a fitness policy that has been in place by the Board the only difference is going back to around September 2018, the board had decided to tie fitness standards to selection. What happened subsequently is that they had change of coaches and selection panels so in effect it sort of delayed that aspect of the policy but with the new selection panel being appointed last October, everybody was keen to implement that policy which we thought was very important… Players have known about this going back to 2018…they have been aware of this aspect of the policy was going to be implemented, in fact they expected it sooner but we wanted to make sure there were maximum transparency and everything was in place to support that policy which we are now happy with,” he stated.
Adams went on to point out that players were aware that this policy would be implemented and “the response has been very good so far throughout the Caribbean because we have most of our players statistically above that level.”