Wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik revealed that he spoke to a few of the Indian players currently in England after the fifth match between India and England was called off after few cricketers from the visiting team were reluctant to take the field due to COVID-19 scare.
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“I spoke to a few of the guys (Indian players). Almost all games have gone down the wire, they are tired and they have only one physio right now.
“They had two, but before this one went down along with the chief coach, another couple of the coaches, so they had one physio, so they’ve done a lot of work with that man. And now he tests positive. Now, that is the problem,” Karthik told Sky Sports.
The fifth Test between India and England was called off over COVID-19 fears. The match was predicted to go as planned after all Team India players tested negative in the PCR results. However, players expressed their concerns over playing at Old Trafford after India’s second physio, Yogesh Parmar, tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday.
“If it was somebody else, somebody was helping you know in terms of logistics and all that they wouldn’t be this afraid but when this person got it, the physio, I think that’s when they got the jitters a little bit,” he added.
Karthik even added that the few days left for resumption of IPL 2021 made players more reluctant.
“You also have to understand, as soon as this finishes, they have the IPL soon after that the World Cup, and soon after that the New Zealand series and we are talking about literally one-week turnarounds,” Karthik said.
“How many bubbles can they do? When they left, when they assembled in India on May 16 it’s almost four months. That’s a lot of time already.”
“Let’s take an example for today, most of the guys today haven’t even slept till 2.30-3 in the morning because they don’t know if they have to be ready for the match, they don’t know because you know it’s very late in India, so they don’t know if they’re going to be able to speak to ECB those kinds of discussions were gone.
“So most of them haven’t even slept till 3 O’clock so the Test match happening today was out of question almost. It’s whether they can delay it further, but you have to remember that there is a good chance that in the RT-PCR test three days later, someone could test positive and if he’s in the playing 11, then what happens to that person,” he said.
“Is he going to spread it around? Is he this super spreader for that point of time, that puts every other player in jeopardy, and then they have to stay 10 days in England then what happens to the IPL, which is supposed to start four days after they land in Dubai…
“…So it has so many other questions, it’s not necessary that they’ve tested negative today means that two days later they will test negative again. Even if it is one person who does test positive, then that puts the whole thing into another different dimension,” said Karthik.
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