NEW DELHI: Indian cricketers Deepak Chahar and Siddharth Kaul have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Both bowlers took the first jab on Monday and urged everyone to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
"Got my first dose of COVID vaccine today. I urge you all to get vaccinated as soon as possible. And a big thanks to our police, doctors and all the frontline staff for taking care of us. I hope we recover soon from this COVID pandemic," Deepak tweeted.
Siddharth said an "armour" of vaccine is necessary to defeat the ongoing coronavirus crisis and get our lives back to normal. "The only way to win the war against this pandemic is to have an armour of the Vaccine. Got my first Jab today !! I urge all of you to please get your vaccination done asap. We all want our lives back to the normal," Siddharth tweeted.
On Monday, Cheteshwar Pujara, Team India skipper Virat Kohli and Ishant Sharma also took the COVID-19 vaccine. Last week, Umesh Yadav, Ajinkya Rahane, and Shikhar Dhawan received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Rahane, Umesh, Ishant, Kohli and Pujara will be next seen in action when India locks horns against New Zealand in the final of the World Test Championship (WTC).
The WTC final gets underway on June 18 and will continue till June 22 with June 23 kept as a reserve day. While it was initially set to be played at the Lord's, the ICC decided to move it to Southampton with an eye on the COVID-19 situation across the globe.
The BCCI has named a 20-member squad (two subject to fitness clearance) which will also have standby players. Of the four standby players, fast bowler Prasidh Krishna has tested positive for COVID-19.