The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020, being held in UAE is played behind closed doors in order to keep players and personnel safe from the Coronavirus pandemic. The BCCI has done a lot to make sure the tournament goes off without a hitch.
They hired a UK-based company to prepare the bio-bubbles for all franchises, while the management of each franchise boarded their players, some of them with families in beach resorts or hotels, booking the entire area for two months. They spent a lot on making team rooms, giving players time to players to let off steam and stay fresh mentally.
However, the same franchises are now accusing the BCCI of double standards after BCCI had reduced the quarantine period for some of the 21 players who traveled from Manchester to Dubai to be a part of the tournament.
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“We have invested so much in securing our team and staff members in this bio bubble. CSK has two players who recently returned from the England-Australia series. Despite not completing 36-hour quarantine, Josh Hazlewood and Sam Curran traveled to Abu Dhabi by bus for a two-hour journey. In those 2 hours, if they are carrying any kind of symptoms, they will put others’ health at risk,” a source close to the development told timesnownews.com.
Source hinted that both Curran and Hazlewood might not have quarantined for the entire 36 hours as players have to reach the ground 4 hours in advance.
“The BCCI has shown double standards here where they have asked other franchises to go through complete quarantine, but reduced the quarantine period to 36 hours for some players? And it is not even 36 hours. They are counting 36 hours as per the local match time at 6: 00 pm but the players report 4 hours before a match so they have not even been quarantined for 36 hours,” the source added.
The source was also not convinced that 36-hour quarantine was enough for overseas players, as DC physio tested positive for COVID-19 after two negative tests.
“The Delhi physio who was tested positive, two of his tests were negative and it was the third test which turned out to be positive. This shows that there is no guarantee that a person will not test positive even after testing negative twice. So the players who were asked to go through two tests, there is a chance that they might have symptoms as we saw in the Delhi physio’s case. Health-wise, everybody should take equal precautions and quarantine rules should be the same for everybody,” the source said.
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Another franchise official said that BCCI should have stuck to guidelines and let all the 21 England, Australia players undergo a six-day quarantine after coming to UAE.
“If the 21 players were that important, BCCI could have also postponed the tournament by 3 more days so that their quarantine period is over. Or, if postponing the schedule was not an option, all these players could have missed the opening match for their franchises as health is more important than winning or losing,” said the official.
The CSK camp's six-day quarantine turned into a full 14 days, after 13 members of their contingent were found COVID-19 positive. Before the tournament started, RR fielding coach Dishant Yagnik also tested positive for Coronavirus, and joined the team in UAE after recovering from it.
(timesnownews.com inputs)
