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England-India 5th Test to go ahead after Covid-19 scare

'All the players have returned with negative test,' a BCCI source said late on Friday
Last Updated 10 September 2021, 04:58 IST

After a dramatic turn of events that led to the fifth and final Test between India and England in Manchester coming close to being cancelled, late night developments on Thursday restored a semblance of sanity.

After the team's assistant physio Yogesh Parmar tests returned positive for Covid-19, the entire Indian squad went into isolation following the cancellation of their scheduled practice, ahead of the final Test beginning Friday. The sensational development had put a big question mark over the Test but with all the 21 players of the Indian Test squad testing negative for Covid-19, the decks were cleared for the match to proceed as scheduled.

The Indians had already lost their head physio Nitin Patel, who is currently in isolation in Manchester after being identified as one of the close contacts of head coach Ravi Shastri who tested positive during the course of the fourth Test in London. Along with Shastri, bowling coach Bharat Arun and fielding coach R Sridhar also tested positive.

"All the players have returned with negative test," a BCCI source said late on Friday.

BBC Test Match Special also tweeted, quoting ECB. "The ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) say that all the India players' PCR COVID Tests have come back negative and the Old Trafford Test goes ahead as planned."

The fate of the Test was hanging in balance till late Thursday evening with even the BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, speaking at a book launch event in Kolkata, expressing his doubts about the match taking place. "We don’t know if the match will happen at the moment. Hopefully we can get some game."

This followed hectic, but occasionally heated, discussions between ECB and BCCI before negative tests put an end, even if temporarily, to all speculations.

Despite all the players testing negative, there was still doubt whether the BCCI would take the gamble of going ahead with the game because of its potential impact on the remaining part of the Indian Premier League which is set to resume in the UAE on September 19. The IPL franchises and official broadcasters had reportedly expressed their apprehension over losing some of the star players.

All the players involved in the cash-rich league are slated to have a bubble-to-bubble transfer from Manchester to the UAE on September 15. Any more positive cases in Manchester will severely impact this as players will end up having to undergo mandatory quarantine in the UAE, from which the BCCI has currently availed an exception.

Franchises, obviously, wouldn’t be too happy to lose players like Rohit Sharma or Jaspreet Bumrah or Virat Kohli in the business end of the event.

Sources said ECB and BCCI were holding talks since the World Test Championship points are up for grabs on each Test. While ECB had reportedly demanded that India forfeit the final Test, both players and the BCCI had opposed it. Another option was to play the Test next year when India tour England for a limited-over series. BCCI was not too keen on this as well as it meant sending a 30-member squad for just one Test. Instead, they proposed to play a couple extra T20s or ODIs to compensate for any revenue losses.

Parmar is the fourth member of Indian team’s support staff to test positive for Covid-19 in less than a week after Shastri, Arun and Sridhar. The trio didn’t travel with the team to Manchester. India, despite the absence of the coaching staff, went on to win the Oval Test in rousing fashion and lead the series 2-1. Only batting coach Vikram Rathour was with the team.

Parmar was understood to have worked closely with Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma after the conclusion of the fourth Test.

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(Published 09 September 2021, 18:33 IST)

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