The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has postponed the Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy tournament, currently underway in Pune. The decision follows widespread Covid cases, mainly in Maharashtra, as well as detection of cases of infection among the participating teams. The tournament had reached the quarter-finals stage which was to kick off on Tuesday (January 11). The BCCI confirmed the cancellation late on Monday afternoon.
In a mail to the state associations, secretary Jay Shah said, "Unfortunately, there have been Covid 19 cases within the team environment and we are now forced postpone the knockout stage, keeping the health and safety of everyone concerned. "Shah hoped to revive the tournament once the situation improves. "Once the caseload again goes down and the situation improves, we will lock in a new window and resume the knockout leg of the tournament. "The Mumbai team, which qualified for the quarter-finals, has had a player, infected, and had to be isolated just after their pre-quarter-finals game. Similar cases were also found in Saurashtra, which was knocked out of the competition in the pre-quarter-final stage. Apart from Mumbai, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Vidarbha, Bengal, Haryana and hosts Maharashtra qualified for the last-eight stage and were to be in action from Tuesday.
