New Delhi, May 3: The COVID-19 pandemic seems to have hit the Indian Premier League as well with players contracting the deadly virus despite staying in the biosecure bubble. The BCCI has already confirmed that Kolkata Knight Riders players Sandeep Warrier and Varun Chakravarthy testing positive and isolating themselves in Ahmedabad. The development has led to the rescheduling of the match between KKR and Royal Challengers Bangalore today.
Reports now suggest that a few members of the Chennai Super Kings' squad have also tested positive in New Delhi. If the report is true then it would be a major blow to the BCCI for not just in Ahmedabad, the bio bubble in New Delhi also seems to have been compromised.
IPL 2021: Crisis hits Kolkata Knight Riders as 2 players test COVID-19 positive, match against RCB rescheduledVarious unconfirmed reports have stated that multiple members of CSK also tested COVID-19 positive on Monday. A member of the Star Sports television crew has also tested positive. The development was confirmed by Peter Lalor on Twitter, who is the chief cricket writer at The Australian.
Various unconfirmed reports on CSK, some say it is not players but staff, either way people are freaking out
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) May 3, 2021
Lalor later tweeted that he's still not sure about CSK players testing positive.
Update, at least two at KKR. Not sure yet about CSK.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) May 3, 2021
Meanwhile, senior journalist Venkat Krishna tweeted that three members (not players) of CSK and five groundsmen at Feroz Shah Kotla have tested positive.
Two KKR players, three members (not players) from CSK and 5 groundsmen at Kotla have tested positive for Covid-19 in a bio-bubble environment in Delhi and Ahmedabad. Don't know what is in store for the IPL now? Schedule rejig will be a nightmare.
— Venkata Krishna B (@venkatatweets) May 3, 2021
The development puts the future of the competition in jeopardy for it puts at risk the health of other franchises.
Earlier in the day, while confirming that Chakravarthy and Warrier have been found positive and the duo players have isolated themselves, the BCCI announced that the match between KKR and RCB will be held at a later date.
"Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier were found to be positive in the third round of testing in the last four days. All other team members have tested negative for COVID -19.
"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 IPL release said.
The BCCI claimed that the Medical Team is also 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.
Earlier last week, Australia spinner Adam Zampa after pulling out of the tournament due to the rising number of cases in India termed the biosecure bubble in IPL 2021 as the 'most vulnerable' and the reports of players testing positive substantiates his claim.