New Delhi: Three members of the Chennai Super Kings’ IPL contingent – chief executive officer (CEO) K Viswanathan, bowling coach L Balaji and a bus cleaner – have tested positive for Covid-19.
The rest of the CSK group, which is currently in Delhi, has tested negative. The results emerged after the latest round of testing on Sunday.
According to ESPNcricinfo report, Viswanathan, Balaji and the member of the maintenance staff took a fresh test on Monday morning to rule out the possibility of a false positive.
If they test positive again, they would need to spend 10 days in a designated isolation facility outside the team bubble and return two negative tests before re-entering.
The news broke soon after the BCCI rescheduled Monday’s game between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore as two KKR players – Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier – tested positive.
‘Varun Chakaravarthy and Sandeep Warrier were found to be positive in the third round of testing in the last four days. All other team members have tested negative for COVID-19,’ the IPL said in a statement.
Both, Chakravarthy and Warrier have been isolated and the rest of the KKR contingent has returned negative reports for now.
‘The Medical Team is in continuous touch with the duo and are monitoring their health. Meanwhile, the Kolkata Knight Riders have now moved towards a daily testing routine to identify any other possible cases and treat them at the earliest,’ the statement further said.
‘The Medical Team is also determining the close and casual contacts of the two positive cases during the 48 hours prior to collection of the sample that returned the positive test results,’ it added.
According to IPL’s Standard Operating Procedure for COVID-19 management, any close contact of an infected person has to isolate for six days and return three negative tests on days 1, 3 and 6.
Additionally, a few groundsmen at Delhi’s Kotla Stadium, have also tested positive for the virus. However, Delhi and Districts Cricket Association (DDCA) chief Rohan Jaitley said ‘none of the groundsmen on duty’ are among them.
India on Monday reported 3,68,147 new cases of COVID-19 during the past 24 hours, pushing the country caseload to 1,99,25,604, while the death toll mounted to 2,18,959 with 3,417 more fatalities.
