India cricketers Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw and Navdeep Saini have been placed isolation, Cricket Australia confirmed on Saturday. This will include separating the group of players from the broader Indian and Australian squads when traveling and at the training venue. The players will be permitted to train according to the protocols in place.
Meanwhile, the BCCI and Cricket Australia will investigate the matter regarding a possible breach of the biosecure bubble protocols.
The Indian players are being investigated for their recent interaction with a fan at an indoor venue in Melbourne on Friday, 1 January. The fan, who was understandably very excited at seeing some of his favourite cricketers, paid for their meal and initially said he had hugged Pant, before retracting his version claiming to have been over-excited.
“In the interim, on the advice of the Australian and Indian medical teams, the aforementioned players have been placed in isolation as a precaution. This will include separating the group of players from the broader Indian and Australian squads when traveling and at the training venue,” CA’s statement read.
Players and staff are permitted to leave the hotel but must dine outdoors during the Melbourne leg of the tour. The four-Test series between Australia and India is being played amid a backdrop of biosecurity rules, which will get stricter when the squads travel to Sydney on Monday.
Rohit, who has just joined the team after two weeks of quarantine, had been recovering from injury at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.
Rohit has been named vice-captain of the Indian team that will face Australia in the remaining two Test matches of ongoing the series. The series is level at 1-1 and the third Test will be played in Sydney from January 7.
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