MANCHESTER/DUBAI, Sep 11: The Indian cricketers, contracted to play the Indian Premier League (IPL), left for the UAE in chartered and commercial flights after returning negative RT-PCR tests for the second time in two days.
The travel arrangements were made by players’ respective franchises.
The players began their early departures for the remainder of the IPL, starting September 19, after India’s fifth Test against England was postponed indefinitely following COVID-19 outbreak in the Indian camp.
The players, led by Virat Kohli, refused to take the field despite testing negative for the virus as they had apprehensions that playing members could contract the virus after assistant physio Yogesh Parmar tested positive just ahead of the final game.
“The good news is that all the players and support staff members have now tested negative for the RT-PCR for the second time. The reports arrived late on Friday evening and most of them are already on their way to Dubai for the IPL,” a senior BCCI official said.
“Two non-IPL players Abhimanyu Easwaran and Arjan Nagwaswalla will be flying out on Monday with the rest of the support staff. They will be flying to their respective Indian cities via Dubai and will take a commercial flight,” the senior official said.
The players started departing in clusters – some in charter flight arranged by their franchises like Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderbad while Chennai Super Kings cricketers took commercial flight.
Harrison himself attended Shastri’s Book launch
It was learnt late on Friday evening that even England and Wales Cricket Board CEO Tom Harrison attended the book launch of India’s head coach Ravi Shastri, who got infected during the function and was forced into quarantine during the fourth Test.
BCCI was peeved at the timing of the event in the middle of the series since it allowed outside guests.
It has now been identified as a super spreader with no one wearing face masks because of relaxation of rules.
Shastri, bowling coach Bharath Arun and fielding coach R Sridhar all tested positive after the event. (PTI)
