Amid the controversy surrounding around some Indian players’ restaurant visit in Australia, BCCI on Monday (December 4) confirmed that the visiting team and its support staff have returned negative in the latest COVID-19 tests conducted in Melbourne ahead of the third Test at SCG.
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The third Test is scheduled to start on January 7 and Team India arrived in Sydney on Monday.
"Playing members of the Indian Cricket Team and support staff underwent an RT-PCR Test for COVID-19 on January 3, 2021. All tests have returned negative results," the BCCI said in a statement.
The statement comes in the wake of a controversy which saw five Indian players namely Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Navdeep Saini and Prithvi Shaw being isolated from the team after a video of them at an indoor restaurant went viral on social media.
Subsequently, Cricket Australia had announced a joint investigation with the BCCI to determine whether the case violated the bio-security protocol for the series.
The five players, however, allowed to train and travel with the team for the match in Sydney. As per the sources in the Indian contingent, they have been cleared to play in the third Test.
While CA had announced a joint probe into the matter, there has been no clarification on it from either of the two boards in the last two days.
The players, according to team sources, have maintained that they went inside the restaurant to avoid a drizzle.
According to the bio-security protocols laid out by CA, players are allowed to sit outside but not allowed to dine inside restaurants.
Apparently, the controversy has not gone down well with the tourists and they are not pleased with how CA has tackled the issue so far.
After this incident, reports emerged in the Australian media that the Ajinkya Rahane-led side is reluctant to travel to Brisbane for the fourth and final Test as they fear getting pushed back into another severe quarantine.
As of now, the fourth Test is scheduled at the Gabba from January 15.
(With PTI inputs)
