Michael Vaughan accuses the IPL of canceling a test match at Old Trafford
When Indian players traveled to the United Arab Emirates from England after the cancellation of the fifth and final test in Manchester, former cricketer Michael Vaughan called the Indian Premier League (IPL) the reason for the cancellation of the match at Old Trafford.
The fifth Test was cancelled over COVID-19 fears among the Team India camp after junior physiotherapist Yogesh Parmartested positive for COVID-19a day before the match. This was after head coach Ravi Shastri, bowling coach Bharat Arun and fielding coach R Sridhar had tested positive earlier.
According to reports, Indian players were not comfortable with the match being played as they feared some of them would have contracted the virus from Parmar.
Still, Vaughan blamed IPL 2021, which will restart from 19 September in UAE, as the reason behind cancellation of Old Trafford Test. He wrote on Twitter: “IPL teams chartering planes .. 6 days quarantining required in the UAE .. 7 days till the tournament starts !!!! Don’t tell me the Test was cancelled for any other reason but the IPL ..”
On the day of cancellation, Vaughan had tweeted that the decision to call off the match was disrespectful to the fans.
“The total lack of respect shown to the Cricketing fan that had travelled hundreds miles today to see the Test today is an utter disgrace .. Surely this could have been dealt with yesterday !!!! Even then I wouldn’t have agreed with it … #ENGvIND,” he wrote on the social media platform.
Vaughan’s tweet comes after England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief executive Harrison refused to blame IPL for the cancellation of the Test match.
“Let me be super-clear about this — I don’t think the IPL has got anything to do with this,” he said. “This is not a situation which has been created by a rescheduled IPL. I fundamentally do not believe that for a second,” Harrison had said.
Vaughan’s view was not shared by others on Twitter with few experts stating that Indian players leaving for IPL after cancellation of the Test match was the obvious step forward.
Meanwhile, the BCCI has offered to reschedulethe cancelled match to help ECB with the potential financial losses.
It has been reported that ECB faces £40m losses after the cancellation of the match.
