After Rishabh Pant, one member of India's support staff tests positive for Covid-19

A senior coach and two players have been identified as close contacts, and asked to quarantine in London for ten days

After Rishabh Pant, four more members of the Indian contingent in England have been forced to quarantine – in London for ten days – following one of the members of the support staff returning a positive Covid-19 test on July 14. Apart from the support staff member, those in quarantine are a senior member of the coaching staff, a senior player and a reserve player, who were identified as his close contacts.

The development comes as a big setback for India’s preparations for the five-Test series in England, which were already affected when Pant returned a positive test, believed to be on July 10. In accordance with the protocols laid down by Public Health England, all those deemed to be in close contact with the person/s affected needed to be traced and isolated for ten days. It is believed that the senior coach, who is traveling with his family, the senior player and the reserve player (both travelling alone), have all cleared the fresh round of tests conducted on Thursday.

The rest of the Indian travelling group is expected to travel to Durham for a tour game.

The latest round of tests – on July 15 – followed those on July 10 and July 14, and while Pant is understood to have tested positive on July 10, it isn’t clear whether he was in close contact with anyone else in the squad at the time. As things stand, Pant, if he did indeed test positive on July 10, has to isolate until July 20 and then clear the mandatory test before reintegrating with the squad.

The same rule applies for the four others who are currently in quarantine.

It is understood that not all members of the Indian squad were aware of Pant testing positive. Even BCCI secretary Jay Shah, who sent an email to all members of the Indian contingent on July 13 asking them to exercise all possible Covid-19 precautions, did not mention Pant’s positive result in that note, seen by ESPNcricinfo. In it, Shah stressed that while the Indian contingent had received the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine recently, that did not “guarantee total immunity or resistance against the dreaded virus”.

More to follow…

Nagraj Gollapudi is news editor at ESPNcricinfo

This article was originally published by Espncricinfo.com. Read the original article here.

After Rishabh Pant, one member of India’s support staff tests positive for Covid-19

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