ENGvsIND: Indian head coach Ravi Shastri is all set to miss out on the upcoming 5th Test match at Manchester after he was again tested covid positive. Along with him, bowling coach Bharat Arun and fielding coach R. Sridhar have also returned covid positive.
As per the report shared by ANI, the three Indian coaches are in complete isolation and will only come out once they show negative results in two consecutive covid tests. The aforementioned will also miss the Manchester test against England which is scheduled between 10-14 September.
“Unfortunately, their RT-PCR test results are positive and they will all need to undergo isolation and can come out only after returning two negative results,” said ANI in a report.
Shastri along with three others were isolated hours before the start of day four in the Oval Test. Fortunately, none of the players were found covid positive. The players along with all the support staff went for a couple of covid tests following the development and everyone got a green signal to play.
Batting coach Vikram Rathore after day four’s play addressed the press conference and revealed that Ravi Shastri felt ill on Saturday evening following which the medical team conducted the lateral flow covid tests.
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“Ravi bhai felt ill on Saturday night around 8 PM. He was having a little bit of discomfort yesterday, the medical team decided to go for a lateral flow test and it came out positive and that is when we all found that he is positive. The close contacts were identified and isolated,’’ said Vikram Rathour in the press conference.
Rathore said that the team is missing the presence of three coaches, but at the same time lauded the boys for handling themselves nicely throughout the test.
‘’Of course, we are missing Ravi bhai massively. Ravi bhai, Bharat Arun, and R Sridhar have been an extremely important part of this setup, they have done well in the past five-six years and they have played a major role in the team doing well.
This is what it is, they are not here. In the morning, it was a bit of a distraction, we had a word and we decided we need to focus on the cricket. We are here for this series, and I think the boys did well to not get distracted. There was a potential we could have been distracted, the credit needs to go to the boys for the way they handled themselves,” Rathour said.
The fourth test match is evenly poised as of now with a bit of stress on the English camp. India has managed to send to English batsman to the dressing room on the first session of day five.
Opener Rory Burns went after completing his half-century while Dawid Malan was run out in the middle.
Team India has a good lead of 237 runs at the lunch on day five while English skipper Joe Root and opener Haseeb Hameed are batting in the middle.
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