Sri Lanka vs India series will start on July 18 after Covid-19 cases in SL camp: Sourav Ganguly

BCCI President Sourav Ganguly on Saturday confirmed that the upcoming limited-overs series between Sri Lanka and India will begin on July 18 after a pair of support staff from the home team tested positive for coronavirus on July 8 and 9. Both teams were supposed to play 3 ODIS and 3 T20Is from July 13 in Colombo, but now the dates have been postponed.

Sri Lanka’s batting coach Grant Flower tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday after which all the squad members and support staff were tested again, the results of which came out on Friday and it was revealed that their video analyst GT Niroshan also contracted the virus.

The two cases now means that the entire Sri Lankan contingent will be kept under quarantine for a longer period of time. As a contingency, the SLC had arranged for two other groups of players – one in Colombo and one in Dambulla – who could potentially stand in for the main squad.

BCCI secretary Jay Shah has spoken to Sri Lanka Cricket chairman Shammi Shiraj Silva and expressed concerns over the virus breach in their bio-bubble. The Lankan board is yet to get back to Shah and will either have to put together a new team for the ODIs, or defer the series by a few days.

This is one of the rarest occasions where two Indian teams will be in action at the same time. Virat Kohli’s Test side will begin their 5-match Test series in England from August 4 while the ODI series in Sri Lanka will end on July 25.

Dhawan was named the captain for the 20-man squad while NCA chief Rahul Dravid took over as the head coach on an interim basis. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who did not travel to England, was named as the vice-captain of the limited-overs side.