Indian women’s and men’s teams are all set to travel to England with their family members.
BCCI revealed on Tuesday that family members of both Indian teams will be allowed to travel with them on the length of the England tour. BCCI had put in a request that players be allowed to take their loved ones on the tour given that they will be spending a lot of time in a bio-secure bubble.
BCCI secretary Jay Shah and President Sourav Ganguly were supposed to attend the WTC finals but now won’t because of strict COVID-19 quarantine restrictions.
“Yes, it’s good news that players will have their families during the tour of the UK. Ditto for the women’s team who can also have their families around. These are times when the mental well-being of players is paramount. The BCCI understands that we need our players and support staff to be in a good headspace,” the source told PTI.
“As far as I know, the ECB didn’t grant permission to them (Ganguly and Shah). Normally, administrators go before the Test match but as per quarantine rules, since they are not paying members, they would have had to undergo hard quarantine of 10 days.”
The men’s team is all set to battle it out against the Kiwis in the finals of the world test championship finals which will start on June 18. They will then take on the home team, England, in a 5 Test match series in the month of August. The men’s team is also expected to play their remaining part of IPL in UAE later this year.
The women’s team will take on the English women in a one-off test match, India’s first test match in almost 7 years, between June 16-19 in Bristol. They will then stay to play 3 One-Day International matches starting from June 27 and 3 T20 Internationals from July 11.
Both the teams are currently in strict quarantine in Mumbai and have been through 6 RT-PCR tests which will allow them to board the charter flight to London on June 2.
After reaching London both the teams will travel to Southampton where they will undergo strict quarantine at the Hilton Hotel. After completing the quarantine, the women’s team will travel to Bristol for their test match and the men’s team will stay back and practice for their big match in Southampton.
It is expected that they will have 3 days of hard quarantine and then they can start training and their net practice.