NEW DELHI: The Indian Premier League was on Tuesday suspended indefinitely after multiple COVID-19 cases were reported in its bio-bubble.
The annoucement came after Sunrisers Hyderabad’s wicketkeeper-batsman Wriddhiman Saha tested positive for COVID-19.
A source in the SRH team who also said that the entire squad has gone into insolation.
“He had fever and had been in isolation for the past five days. We are also being asked to stay in the room,” the source said.
This comes after Wednesday’s IPL game between Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals was postponed after CSK bowling coach L Balaji tested positive for the virus.
On Monday, the match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore was also cancelled after KKR bowlers Sandeep Warrier and Varun Chakravarthy tested positive for the infection.
As per the Board’s Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), anyone who has come in contact with an infected person has to undergo six days of hard quarantine and return three negative RT-PCR reports during the course of it.
“Tomorrow’s match at the Arun Jaitley Stadium between CSK and RR will be rescheduled as per SOP rules. As Balaji was in contact with the players, all of them have gone into hard quarantine. They are supposed to be tested everyday,” a senior BCCI official said
When CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan was contacted, he said that the team had informed the BCCI about Balaji’s RT-PCR result.
“From our end, we had informed that Mr Balaji has tested positive and as per SOP our players have been isolated,” Viswanathan said.
All CSK playing members have tested negative during their scheduled RT-PCR tests
This is the second IPL match to be rescheduled after Monday’s Kolkata Knight Riders vs Royal Challengers Bangalore game was postponed owing to a couple of KKR players, Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier — testing positive.
Delhi is hosting Mumbai Indians vs SunRisers Hyderabad clash this evening.
The match remains on schedule for now but there is palpable anxiety as Mumbai Indians had played against CSK as recently as Saturday and Balaji did come in contact of MI players during the match.
Many in BCCI feel that it would have been prudent to even reschedule this evening’s game.
“Even MI players are at risk having played CSK. BCCI ideally should reschedule today’s game also. Normally symptoms start showing mostly on 6th or 7th day after you have come in contact of the infected person,” the BCCI source said.
Speculation is also rife about a possible shift to Mumbai for the remainder of the tournament but some logistical concerns are in the way.
“What do you do for seven days of hard quarantine for multiple hotel staff as you would need at least four hotels to create a new bio bubble,” the official said.
If the tournament is moved to Mumbai, then Kolkata and Bengaluru would be missing out on their quota of games.
Another view is to keep the games in the venues currently being used — Delhi and Ahmedabad.
“If you see when matches were being held in Mumbai and Chennai, things were under control. The trouble started after teams began were travelling from one city to another,” a franchise official said.
The spread of infections had led to postponement of two IPL games earlier.
There was cause of concern in Delhi too as a few groundsmen at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium tested positive even though DDCA chief Rohan Jaitley asserted that “none of the groundsmen on duty” were among the infected.
Just days before this, three Australian players had pulled out of the league, citing COVID-19 concerns amid a devastating second wave of the global pandemic that has overwhelmed the medical infrastructure of the country.
The 2020 IPL had also been held in a bio-secure bubble in the UAE and at that time, infections were only reported before the start of the tournament.
India is currently recording over 3 lakh cases everyday and more than 3,000 daily deaths.
