CHENNAI: Indian players and support staff for the women's T20 tri-series to be played in the UAE from November 4-9 are under isolation in Mumbai. In the mandatory Covid-19 tests that each of them underwent thrice from October 14-19, one returned positive, that of Shalini, a physical trainer for one of the three teams. She will not be travelling to the UAE.
This being the only positive test out of 50 is good news for the contingent as they were confined to their hotel rooms after joining the bio-bubble. Before arriving in Mumbai, they had tests and Manasi Joshi was the only player who had a positive result. She had been ruled out back then. Other than these two, everybody is negative. They will leave for the UAE on October 21 and start having net practice after a mandatory quarantine period of six days.
It has been learnt that the last set of tests were done on Monday. The Hyderabad-based Shalini tested positive in one of the tests done before that. Since there is not enough time to allow her to recover and rejoin the party, she was left out and a replacement was named. But since just one person has tested positive, authorities are not overly worried about it.
Because the players and others in the contingent are not allowed to leave their rooms during their stay in the Mumbai hotel, there is little chance of anybody coming in touch with Shalini. For tests during their stay in Mumbai, samples were collected from their rooms. For this reason, no more tests are deemed necessary before they leave for the UAE.
The BCCI has selected three teams — Supernovas, Velocity and Trailblazers — for a series of four matches, which will be telecast live like the IPL. Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and Mithali Raj are the three captains. Other than India, there are players from other countries in these teams. The teams will face each other once before the final.