Monday night’s IPL match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore has been rescheduled after KKR’s Varun Chakaravarthy and Sandeep Warrier tested positive for COVID -19, the BCCI confirmed in a press release on Monday afternoon.
‘Both the players have isolated themselves from the rest of the squad. The Medical Team is in continuous touch with the duo and are monitoring their health. Meanwhile, the Kolkata Knight Riders have now moved towards a daily testing routine to identify any other possible cases and treat them at the earliest,’ the statement further added.
All other team members however have tested negative for COVID -19.
The match was scheduled to be played at 7:30pm in Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium tonight.
According to ESPNCrinfo, Chakravarthy had recently exited the team’s bio-bubble to get scans on his shoulder and that may well be where he was exposed to the virus.
KKR have been in Ahmedabad for over a week and last played on Thursday, 29 April when they lost to Delhi Capitals by 7 wickets.
According to the BCCI’s statement, the two players ‘were found to be positive in the third round of testing in the last four days’ and the Medical Team ‘is now determining the close and casual contacts of the two positive cases during the 48 hours prior to collection of the sample that returned the positive test results.’
Second Breach in IPL Bubble
This is the second case of an IPL franchise’s member testing positive after entering the bio-bubble.
Mumbai Indians’ wicketkeeping consultant Kiran More also tested positive after the team had landed in Chennai ahead of the IPL season. While the news was announced on 6 April, the team conducted fresh rounds of tests and found no other members to have been exposed and went ahead with their 9 April tournament-opener against RCB.
KKR play their next match on Saturday 8 May, 2021.
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