The flamboyant Indian cricketer Suresh Raina has been included in the ODI squad against England as the replacement of Ambati Rayudu, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced on Saturday.

The BCCI statement read: “The All-India Senior Selection Committee has named Suresh Raina as Ambati Rayudu’s replacement in India’s ODI squad for the series against England. The announcement came after Rayudu failed to clear his fitness test that was held at National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru on Friday.”

Rayudu was expecting a dream return in the Indian squad after a phenomenal season of the recently concluded Indian Premier League (IPL). But his hopes of joining the team for the limited-overs tour of England were crashed down on Friday as he failed the Yo-Yo test at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.

The Hyderabad batsman last played for India against Zimbabwe in 2016 and while the Indian captain Virat Kohli and his predecessor MS Dhoni passed the test with ease, the Hyderabad batsman’s score was well below the threshold mark of 16.1 as per reports.

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Rayudu isn’t the only one who failed the test as the earlier casualties were Mohammed Shami in the senior team and Sanju Samson in the ‘A’ team. More than a decade ago, when Andrew Leipus was the physio and Adrian le Roux the trainer, Indian cricket started using the bleep test as a measure of the players’ aerobic fitness. Back then, however, the numbers were only a guide and no player was sidelined because he didn’t meet a certain benchmark.

India’s squad for ODIs against England: Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Karthik, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Siddarth Kaul, Umesh Yadav