India canceled its last practice session before Test 5 against England at Emirates Old Trafford after a member of its support staff tested positive for Covid-19; Head coach Ravi Shastri tested positive during the fourth test in the Kia Oval
India’s head coach Ravi Shastri has not traveled with the rest of the team after testing positive for coronavirus during the fourth test.
New concerns have arisen as to whether the fifth and final round between England and India at Old Trafford will go ahead as planned.
Players from India are concerned about the coronavirus situation on their team and there is now concern that the Test, which is due to start on Friday morning, will be suspended.
India’s practice session on Thursday was canceled after a member of its support staff tested positive for Covid-19.
The second physiotherapist, Yogesh Parmar, tested positive on Wednesday and practice was canceled as the team awaited the results of a new round of tests carried out on Thursday morning.
The ECB later announced that there had been no further positive tests for Covid-19 in the Indian countryside.
India’s head coach Ravi Shastri had previously tested positive for the virus during the fourth test at the Kia Oval and has since been in isolation with bowling coach Bharat Arun, field coach R Sridhar and physical therapist Nitin Patel.
India leads 2-1 in the five-round series after winning the Oval Test by 157 races.
Jos Buttler said earlier Thursday that England had “fingers crossed” that Test 5 would take place.
England completed their own pre-match preparations shortly after noon on Thursday and are hopeful that the match will go as planned.
“Right now, we hope the game will go ahead and we are preparing to play tomorrow. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and the game will move on,” Vice Captain Buttler said.
“We don’t know too much to be honest. It would be naive to speculate too much about things I don’t know. Everything is going well in our field.
“We trained well this morning, so yeah, we hope we all look forward to tomorrow’s game.”
