BCCI's Bronco Test Is Meant To Raise India's Fitness Standards: Wayne Lombard On What It Really Measures

New Delhi: The Bronco Test has been introduced by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) into Indian cricket with a fairly straightforward objective: raise fitness standards and get players, particularly fast bowlers, doing more running-based conditioning.

The move came amidst concerns around the fitness levels of Indian cricketers' during the 2025 England Test series, where injuries affected several members of the pace attack.

The recommendation for the Bronco came from strength and conditioning coach Adrian Le Roux, who wanted fast bowlers to accumulate more running miles rather than relying too heavily on gym-based work. The test was brought in as an additional fitness benchmark, with players required to complete five sets of 20m, 40m and 60m shuttle runs - 1,200 metres in total.

The thinking behind the change was not simply about replacing one fitness test with another. The BCCI wanted clearer fitness standards and a better understanding of players' aerobic capacity, while Le Roux has also described the Bronco as both a training mechanism and a measurement tool that can be conducted virtually anywhere.

But does a different test necessarily mean Indian cricketers will become fitter?

Sports scientist Wayne Lombard believes the answer lies less in the test itself and more in what coaches do with the information it produces.

Speaking exclusively to myKhel, Lombard said the Bronco is a useful tool but should not be treated as something revolutionary. For him, it is another way of measuring aerobic capacity - and its real value comes when the data is used to build better, individualised training programmes.

'The Bronco Has Been Around For A While'

Lombard is particularly familiar with the test because of his background in rugby, where the Bronco has been used extensively.

"Yeah, so the Bronco has been around for a while. It was actually developed... mostly used in rugby union, to be honest. So I'm quite familiar with it because, obviously being from South Africa and worked a lot with rugby as well, we have been, we have used the Bronco before."

The test consists of continuous running over 20m, 40m and 60m, repeated five times. Unlike some intermittent fitness assessments, there is no rest between the sets.

"The Bronco's just a, some say it's intermittent, it's not really intermittent, it's continuous running over 20, 40 and 60 meters, times 5... 5 times. It's self-paced, it's a good indicator of aerobic capacity."

That makes it relevant to the concern that prompted its introduction into Indian cricket: ensuring players are adequately conditioned for the physical demands of the modern game.

Why BCCI Wanted More Running

The introduction of the Bronco came against the backdrop of concerns that India's players, especially fast bowlers, were not doing enough running-based conditioning. The emphasis from Le Roux was on building endurance rather than relying predominantly on gym work.

The timing was significant. India's five-Test England tour had exposed the physical demands placed on the pace attack, with only Mohammed Siraj playing all five Tests without a fitness issue.

The BCCI's objective, therefore, was broader than simply finding a new number for players to beat. It was about establishing a more consistent understanding of fitness and making sure players were physically equipped for increasingly demanding schedules.

Lombard, however, argues that the choice of test should not become the focus.

'The 2K Is The Same'

One of the interesting aspects of the Bronco is that it is not fundamentally measuring something that Indian cricket had never measured before. Lombard believes the 2km time trial already used in cricket provides a broadly similar indication of aerobic capacity.

"The 2K is the same, it's also a good indicator of aerobic capacity. They both can be used interchangeably."

There is, however, one important distinction. The Bronco requires repeated changes of direction, whereas a 2km time trial is a continuous linear run.

"I think some people are just better at pacing themselves over a linear pattern relative to change of direction. So the change of direction obviously plays a little bit of a role in increasing neuromuscular fatigue, because every time you change you using a little bit of extra muscles to produce those changes."

For cricket, that change of direction adds another physical element to the assessment, even though Lombard does not believe it fundamentally changes what the test is measuring.

'It's Nothing Special'

Lombard's assessment of the Bronco is notably matter-of-fact. He added, "But ultimately they are fairly similar. So whether you're using the Yo-Yo test, whether you're using the Bronco, whether you're using the 2K time trial, or what we use at hockey now is the 30-15, all in general gives you an overall indication of how fit an athlete is, or what we would call the aerobic capacity."

For him, the Bronco is therefore not a magic solution to India's fitness concerns. "So it's just different ways of measuring it. So yeah, it's nothing special to be honest, it's just another... another means to develop or understand where your players are at from a aerobic capacity perspective."

That distinction is important. If India's problem was that players were not sufficiently conditioned, simply changing the assessment does not automatically address the problem.

The test can identify where a player is. The training programme has to determine where that player goes next.

Bronco Is Not A Sprint Test

Lombard also cautions against viewing the Bronco as a comprehensive measure of a cricketer's physical ability.

"A sprint test is completely different. So a sprint test, obviously, we're going to be testing something called your max velocity, whereas the Bronco and other traditional fitness tests like I said, so whether it's 30-15, Yo-Yo, the old-school bleep test, they all measure aerobic capacity just in different ways."

For him, the more sophisticated approach is to combine different tests to build an individual physical profile.

"Not just using one test, you're using two or three different tests to get a real good indicator, okay, is someone a so-called hybrid profile, so they're quite fast and they're quite fit? Is someone more an endurance profile, so they're relatively fit but they're not so fast, or is someone got a more of a speed profile, which means they're actually a little bit, they're pretty quick but they probably need to work on their aerobic capacity?"

That distinction could be particularly relevant in cricket, where the physical demands of a fast bowler are not identical to those of a batter, wicketkeeper or spinner.

What Should Indian Cricket Do With The Data?

This, according to Lombard, is where the real value of fitness testing lies. A test can produce a number, but that number is only useful if it changes what happens in training.

"So you can then start prescribing because all these things, all these tests do is give you an indication of where your athlete's at and what needs to be worked on to get them to a level where they can compete at whatever level it is that they're playing."

That means the focus should move beyond whether a player has crossed a particular benchmark.

"Yes, it's easy to say, okay, you need to run a Bronco in five minutes 20 or, for rugby for example it's generally around four and a half minutes or less. However, what do you do with that data and how do you use that data to improve your athlete's physical capacity?"

For Lombard, that is ultimately the responsibility of the performance staff.

"Because ultimately that's the role of your S&C, your sports scientist or your performance staff, is to how can we actually improve the physical capacity of the athletes with the data that we're collecting, because a lot of times we collect a lot of data but we don't actually do anything with that data."

'We Need To Individualize Things A Little Bit More'

The final piece, Lombard believes, is individualisation. Rather than treating every player according to the same fitness template, testing should help coaches understand the specific physical profile of each player and tailor their conditioning accordingly.

"So it's really important that whatever we're doing from a sports science perspective we actually use that data to create better programs, to make informed decisions with regards to individuals and try and individualize things a little bit more."

That perhaps offers the clearest answer to the question surrounding India's Bronco Test. The BCCI introduced it because it wanted clearer fitness standards and greater running-based conditioning, particularly after concerns around player fitness and the physical demands on fast bowlers.

But Lombard's argument is that the test itself is not the solution. The real measure of its success will be whether the information gathered from it leads to better conditioning, fewer fitness-related setbacks and players who are better equipped to handle the demands of international cricket.

In other words, the most important number may not be the time on the Bronco stopwatch. It may be what Indian cricket does with that number afterwards.