The England and Wales cricket board (ECB) has confirmed that the fifth and final Test match between England and India which was supposed to be played from September 10 at Old Trafford in Manchester has been canceled.

“Due to fears of a further increase in the number of COVID cases inside the camp, India are regrettably unable to field a team. We send our sincere apologies to fans and partners for this news, which we know will cause immense disappointment and inconvenience to many,” ECB's official statement read.

This comes after almost all of the Indian team support staff including head coach Ravi Shastri, bowling coach B Arun, fielding coach R Sridhar and both the physios Nitin Patel and Yogesh Parmar tested positive for COVID-19.

While Yogesh Parmar tested positive on Wednesday, the other four members of the Indian contingent had tested positive ahead of the fourth Test in Manchester and were sent to quarantine.

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On Thursday, the entire Indian team underwent a round of RT-PCR tests and in the evening, all of them tested negative for the virus.

However, on Friday morning, discussions between ECB and BCCI reported that Indian players were apprehensive about playing the match given the current conditions. As per reports, ECB had earlier asked BCCI to forfeit the match if they didn’t want to play which led to some heat.

(ECB inputs)