Twelve days after Team Virat Kohli had to abandon their tour of England on the opening day of the final Test in Manchester after physio Yogesh Parmar tested positive for Covid-19, the virus has returned to haunt Indian cricket, only this time inside the IPL bio-bubble in the UAE.
Sunrisers Hyderabad left-arm seamer T. Natarajan tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday during a scheduled RT-PCR test in Dubai. He has isolated himself from the rest of the squad, while six other members of the franchise, identified as his close contacts, are also in isolation. Natarajan is asymptomatic, according to an IPL release.
Their match against Delhi Capitals was, however, not affected by the positive result, unlike the final Test against England.
Parmar had returned a positive test two days before the scheduled start of the Manchester Test on September 10. He was the only physio available in England and several cricketers were in close contact with him, triggering panic in the India camp.
On this occasion, however, only two players, all-rounder Vijay Shankar and net bowler G. Periyaswamy, were found to be close contacts of Natarajan.
Several former England players had blamed the IPL for the pullout by India. The BCCI strongly backed the players, rubbishing any talk of foul play. “The players were devastated when they came to know that Parmar had tested positive for Covid-19. They feared they must have contracted the disease and were dead scared. It’s not easy staying in a bubble. Of course, you have to respect their feelings,” BCCI president Sourav Ganguly had told The Telegraph.
Ironically, an outbreak of the virus inside the bio-bubble had led to the IPL being postponed in the first week of May in the backdrop of the deadly second wave that had wreaked havoc on India. Though the BCCI managed to negotiate successfully with several cricket boards to release their players after moving the tournament to the UAE, the pandemic has managed to breach the bio-bubble again.
The others who have been isolated are members of the support staff: Vijay Kumar (team manager), Shyam Sundar J (physiotherapist), Anjana Vannan (doctor) and Tushar Khedkar (logistics manager).
Both Natarajan and Vijay Shankar had been part of the Sunrisers’ training session in Dubai on Tuesday. The entire contingent, including the close contacts, have since tested negative after undergoing RT-PCR tests at 5am local time.
According to the standard operating procedures in place for the IPL, anyone testing positive for Covid-19 must isolate for a minimum of ten days. They can then rejoin the bubble after clearing two tests, on days nine and ten. Natarajan is learnt to have been fully vaccinated.
This is the second time during this year’s edition that a Sunrisers player has tested positive for Covid-19. Wriddhiman Saha had to isolate for two weeks in Delhi after being struck by the virus in May.
When the IPL was shifted to the UAE in 2020, two CSK players, Deepak Chahar and Ruturaj Gaikwad, besides a few other members of the contingent, had also been laid low by the virus.
This is another setback for Natarajan, who had been on a comeback trail after undergoing surgery on his knee following the successful tour of Australia in January.
The BCCI is only hoping more cases do not emerge in the coming days, which could again lead to uncertainty over the IPL and raise questions about the safety of the bio-bubble with the T20 World Cup scheduled to begin next month, also in the UAE.
