South Africa cricket team’s chief medical officer Dr. Shuaib Manjra on Friday (April 3) announced that all players who recently returned from India have tested negative for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) – which is causing havoc all over the world.
Last month, the South Africa team returned home without playing in the scheduled ODI series with the first ODI being washed out while the entire series called off due to the Coronavirus outbreak in India.
Well, all the players, who returned South Africa from India on 18 March, completed a 14-day period of self-isolation on Thursday, April 2, and later they underwent tests and found to be symptom-free of coronavirus, but they will remain in lockdown for the next two weeks.
As per reports in ESPNCricinfo, Manjra said: “All the players were symptom-free and those who opted to perform the tests returned negative results.”
Meanwhile, like India and many other countries, South Africa has also implemented a 21-day lockdown in the country to tackle the spread of the fast-growing COVID-19 virus, which has claimed over 53000 lives and infected 10 lakh people globally so far.
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Well, South Africa’s focus now is on maintaining the players' fitness and trainer Tumi Masekela has sent all the players their training programs.
Masekela said: “We've got time now to work with players in terms of addressing the small niggles that they may have. They have got time to rest and also to do the strength work.”
The trainer signed off by saying, “But the one big thing is the running volume, the aerobic capacity base, which I am going to try and build up in the next two weeks, so that means a lot of running, or a lot of cardio work, cycling or swimming.”
(With PTI Inputs)
