Virat Kohli Completes Fitness Test in London, Cleared Under BCCI Supervision: Reports

The wait around Virat Kohli missing his fitness tests at the BCCI Centre of Excellence is finally over. Reports say the former India captain did his fitness check in England, making him the first current player to do it outside India. Virat last played in IPL 2025 and is likely to return to international cricket in October for the ODI series against Australia.

According to Dainik Jagran, Virat Kohli’s fitness test in England was carried out under the supervision of the BCCI. A source told the paper that Kohli must have taken the board’s approval before doing the test abroad. Meanwhile, all other Indian players, including ODI captain Rohit Sharma, went to the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru for their fitness checks. Kohli has already retired from Tests and T20Is and now plays only in the ODI format.

The report also says that Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Akash Deep, and Nitish Kumar Reddy will take their fitness tests in September. Along with them, players who missed the first round because of injury or illness will also go through the assessments, as per Dainik Jagran.

BCCI’s Stricter Fitness Rules to Prevent Last-Minute Dropouts

According to the report, mаny players have already cleared their fitness tests at the CoE, including Shubmаn Gill, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Washington Sundar, Sarfaraz Khan, Prasidh Krishna, Sanju Samson, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Sirаj, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Axar Patel, Tilak Vаrma, Abhishek Sharma, Shreyas Iyer, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana, Hardik Pandya, Jitesh Sharma, Dhruv Jurel, Rinku Singh, Rohit Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Shivam Dube, Shardul Thakur, Arshdeep Singh, Rajat Patidar, Ravi Bishnoi, Mukesh Kumar, and Ashdeep Singh, with the first round mainly checking recovery and basic strength and the report noting that most players successfully met the required standards.

With injuries and workload becoming a bigger concern in recent years, the BCCI has made fitness rules stricter, making it mandatory for players to clear tests before big series or tournaments to avoid last-minute dropouts and keep them fully fit. While Kohli’s fitness test in London seems like a rare case, it also raises a bigger question for the BCCI should players be allowed to take such tests outside India regularly or should it remain a special exception?

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