The Indian team’s six-match limited-overs series in Sri Lanka will now start from July 18, BCCI secretary Jay Shah told PTI on Saturday, each day after a COVID-19 outbreak within the home team camp forced the postponement.
The series, which was originally scheduled to start out with the three ODIs on July 13, had to be rescheduled after Sri Lanka’s baseball coach Grant Flower and data analyst G T Niroshan tested positive for the dreaded virus on their return from the united kingdom tour, which also meant an extended quarantine period for the squad members.
While the tentative date that was originally being discussed was July 17, but Shah confirmed that it’ll start from July 18.
“India-Sri Lanka ODI series to start out on July 18 thanks to COVID-19 outbreak in home team camp,” Shah told PTI.
The three ODI matches will now be persisted July 18, 20 and 23 at the Premadasa Stadium followed by the T20 Internationals, starting on July 25. The last two T20Is are set to be played on July 27 and 29, respectively, at an equivalent venue.
Earlier within the day, a Sri Lankan player in one among the 2 bio-bubbles had tested positive for COVID-19 because the virus outbreak continued to rock the house team before its white-ball series against an Indian team led by Shikhar Dhawan.
‘Newswire.lk’ quoted Sri Lankan sources as saying that batsman Sandun Weerakkodi has tested positive for the virus.
Weerakoddy wasn’t a neighborhood of UK-returned team. That team remains in isolation post Flower and Niroshan’s positive cases.
The latest positive case came from a separate bubble of 13 players.
The group of players are training separately whilst the virus outbreak forced a postponement of the series by five days after the house team’s baseball coach Flower and data analyst Niroshan have contracted the virus.
According to the report within the website, Weerakkodi was with the 15 senior cricketers, who were training here while staying at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel in Colombo.
The report further stated that Weerakkodi, along side Bhanuka Rajapaksa and a number of other other cricketers, were sent to Dambulla on Friday night to play practice matches before the India series.
The squad staying at Cinnamon Grand also includes Asela Guneratne, Angelo Perera and Bhanuka Rajapaksa, and every one of them will now need to undergo quarantine.
There is another group of 26 cricketers putting up during a separate bubble in Dambulla, and SLC said that they’re all fine.
As per the first schedule, the series was to start out with the ODI leg on July 13, followed by matches on July 16 and July 18. The T20I games were scheduled for July 21, July 23 and July 25.
The second-string Indian team, being led by Dhawan with Rahul Dravid as chief coach, has completed its hard quarantine and has been training in Colombo.
Sri Lanka’s squad had faced an anxious await the results of their RT-PCR tests on returning home from the united kingdom , following a COVID-19 outbreak within the England squad after the ultimate match of their tour in Bristol on Sunday.
The Lankans are during a little bit of turmoil even otherwise with a dispute over contracts and an ongoing inquiry into bio-bubble breach by three players during the britain tour adding to their woes.
