Board of Cricket Control in India has issued strict guidelines for IPL teams and players in the wake of the rising COVID cases. India maybe past Covid-19 pandemic but not the BCCI. Despite ICC rules allowing players who test positive for Covid-19 to play in a match, BCCI has issued a diktat, mandating a minimum of 7-day isolation. It is the same policy that will continue from the previous two seasons.
This season, however, there will be no bio-secure bubbles earlier mandatory for three years since the pandemic. Instead, the IPL has said that it wants to stay “careful” and COVID-19-positive players will not be permitted to partake in any training or matches till they produce a negative COVID test. The earliest mandated negative test can be from the fifth day of recovery.
"While there has been a decline in the number of Covid-19 cases in India we still have to be careful of the emerging strains which are becoming a concern at regular intervals," the IPL's medical guidelines said. The players testing positive will undergo an RT-PCR test after five days of isolation and if it comes negative, they will undergo another test within 24 hours before rejoining the team."From day five, they can undergo a RT-PCR, provided they must be asymptomatic without any medication for 24 hours. Once the first result is negative the 2nd test must be done 24 hours apart. Only after obtaining two negative RT-PCR tests 24 hours apart i.e. day five and day six, can they rejoin the group," the guidelines added. The guidelines also said that players who show symptoms, only those will be tested and the ones asymptomatic will not be. While the players have started playing the matches despite having Covid (Tahlia McGrath in CWG 2022 final, Matt Renshaw in AUS vs SA Test), the BCCI and the IPL don't want to take any chance this time around.
