There is a lot of anticipation around India’s tour Down Under later this year, where Virat Kohli and company will face Australia in four Tests, three ODIs and three T20Is.
In particular, the fans are excited for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and the administrators also don’t want to leave any stone unturned to conduct the much-awaited Test series.
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Before the series, Indian players and staff will most likely be asked to face two weeks of quarantine, Cricket Australia's chief executive Nick Hockley said on Tuesday (July 21).
This scenario will bring the Adelaide Oval and its newly constructed hotel firmly into picture as the sort of bio-secure bubble, ESPNCricinfo reported.
"The two-week quarantine is pretty well-defined. What we are working on is making sure that even within that quarantine environment, the players have got the absolute best training facilities, so that their preparation for the matches is as optimal as it can possibly be," ESPNCricinfo quoted Hockey as saying.
"Certainly the fact that the Adelaide Oval has a hotel. It does provide a facility not dissimilar to Old Trafford or Ageas Bowl where the hotels are integrated into the venue," he added.
India's tour of Australia will kick-start with a T20I affair on October 11 in Brisbane. The other two T20I games will be played on October 14 (Canberra) and October 17 (Adelaide).
The Border-Gavaskar Trophy will begin on December 3 at Gabba. India are then scheduled to play a pink-ball Test from December 11 to 15 in Adelaide while the third and fourth Tests will be held in Melbourne (December 26-30) and Sydney (January 3-7) respectively.
The ODI series is slated to start on January 12 in Perth, followed by matches on January 15 (Melbourne) and January (Sydney) 17.
Nick Hockley also said that an exacting standard of bio-security and testing would be applied before hosting India as the COVID-19 cases are on the rise in the subcontinent.
"It's widely known and it's unlikely that international travel restrictions would have lifted by the time that India will be due to come into the country. Clearly there will be testing regimes. We will be able to test people before that they get on to the plane and it is the nature of the situation of making sure we have the quarantine arrangements in line with government and health authority protocols," Hockley said.
"The key thing for the players is that there's regular testing and that we appropriately quarantine them when they come in and all of those plans are currently in development," he added.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday (July 20) confirmed that the Men's T20 World Cup will not take place this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Australia was slated to host the T20 World Cup 2020 from October 18 to November 15. And now it is speculated that the BCCI will use this window to accommodate the 13th edition of Indian Premier League, which currently remains suspended until further notice.
"I think the BCCI has made no secrets that they are considering what that means for the IPL. For us, it's about getting a bit of an understanding and certainty around what that means. Clearly, in a normal course, some of our best players are obviously top picks for those IPL teams," Hockley said.
"It's a bit premature to speculate on that. We need to understand what the plans are if any and once we understand that we will make decisions accordingly," he further remarked.
