Virat Kohli puts a lot of focus on fitness of himself and his teammates | Photo Credit: BCCI

New Delhi: The mega-auction of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 has gotten over with all the franchises seeming happy with their squad, except Kings XI Punjab co-owner Preity Zinta still ruing for not getting a player in her squad. Meanwhile, a report has emerged that Indian skipper Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) has asked three of their players to clear the Yo-Yo fitness test, which is now the selection criteria of being available for selection in the current Indian squad. With Kohli being one of the fittest sportspersons in the game, the move clearly underlines his brand of leadership, which is focused on fitness pretty much. (IPL 2018 Auction: Brendon McCullum has a message from his new RCB teammate)

According to a report in The Hindu, Delhi cricketers Pawan Negi, Navdeep Saini and Kulwant Khejroliya have been asked to clear the test. Notably, many current Indian cricketers including veteran Yuvraj Singh and another southpaw Suresh Raina have missed out to make a cut in the team for not clearing the test. (IPL 2018: From RCB to KKR, analysing the strengths and weaknesses of every franchise)

Both the above mentioned senior Indian cricketers, however, has passed the test and Suresh Raina, who showed sublime form during the recently-concluded inter-state domestic T20 tournament, Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, where he scored 314 runs in nine innings of the nine matches with two fifties and a hundred, has been rewarded a place on the T20I team to play against South Africa after the completion of the ongoing six-match ODI series, which kicked off today in Durban.

Yuvraj Singh, on the other hand, however, is still out of the favour as he is going through a dip of form with scoring only 208 runs in nine innings in the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy including slow-paced innings of 11 off 34, for which he was brutally trolled by Twitterati.

Meanwhile, here’ the complete squad of Royal Challengers Bangalore, which they have secured in the quest to win their maiden IPL trophy in 2018.

The complete squad of RCB:

Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Sarfraz Khan, Brendon McCullum, Chris Woakes, Colin de Grandhomme, Moeen Ali, Quinton de Kock, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Manan Vohra, Kulwant Kejroliya, Aniket Choudhary, Navdeep Saini, Murugan Ashwin, Mandeep Singh, Washington Sundar, Pawan Negi, Mohammad Siraj, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Anirudha Joshi, Parthiv Patel, Tim Southee, and Pavan Deshpande