BCCI will not pick half-fit players in future: Sources

Players who are not fully fit at the time of team selection will not be considered for future tournaments, according to BCCI sources.

"Earlier, half-fit players were picked in the hope that they would recover fully by the time the tournament starts but the Board has learnt from its experience in the last two Twenty20 World Cups and from now onwards, only fully fit players would be considered for selection," a top board source said.

Lack of fitness is being cited as one of the major reasons behind India's dismal show in the recent Twenty20 World Cup where they could not win a single match in the Super Eights.

Coach Gary Kirsten was aghast with the poor fitness level of the team and he is learnt to have identified Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Rohit Sharma unfit for cricket at any level.

Kirsten said at 42, he himself was fitter than some of the players and felt eight cricketers were grossly overweight.

Kirsten held a one-on-one meeting with seven senior players before they left the West Indies, asking them to do some soul-searching and utilise the break before next month's Asia Cup.

The BCCI is now under pressure to crack down on unfit players in the wake of the team's disastrous performance in the just-concluded Twenty20 World Cup in the West Indies.

The matter is being viewed seriously as the team had also fared very poorly in the previous World Cup in England where they also failed to reach the semi-finals.

A second string team will feature in India's next cricket engagement in Zimbabwe where they will play a tri-series and two Twenty20 matches against the hosts.

But the mood of the selectors will be known when they sit down to select the squad for the Asia Cup to be held in Sri Lanka from June 15-24 and it remains to be seen whether some senior players who have not performed upto expectations are axed.