'No quarantine for Padikkal'

Royal Challengers Bangalore head coach Simon Katich on Tuesday said Devdutt Padikkal, who tested positive for Covid-19 late last week, doesn’t have to serve the mandatory seven-day quarantine and can join the team straightaway the moment he tests negative for the virus.

“He (Padikkal) would become available (for selection) the moment he arrives (in Chennai),” said Katich. “He doesn’t have to go through the quarantine process from what I’ve been told. The medical officers are available if needed, so he could start training immediately. So he still has got a couple of days to prepare. In a way, he’s in the same situation as Virat (Kohli), Washington (Sundar) and AB (de Villiers) and others who can get out of quarantine on April 7. In terms of coming out a couple of days before, yes he would have loved to have a week’s worth of preparation. But ultimately it is what it is. We can’t do much about that. We just gotta prepare accordingly.”

Padikkal marvelled in his debut season last year, emerging as RCB highest run scorer (473). The 20-year-old was in smashing form in the curtailed domestic season too, blasting four successive centuries in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. As per RCB, he’s currently in home quarantine in Bengaluru.