Indian players got jitters after assistant physio tested positive for COVID, says Dinesh Karthik

Dinesh Karthik has stated that players from the Indian team felt uncomfortable about the prospect of playing the fifth and final Test of the recently concluded series against England, after assistant physio Yogesh Parmar tested positive for COVID. The encounter was set to be held at Old Trafford, but was eventually cancelled following discussions between the England Cricket Board (ECB) and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Karthik is now part of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team bubble for the second half of IPL 2021, but was recently involved in the role of a commentator for the first three Tests.

“I spoke to a few of the guys (Indian players). More often than not, a lot of the players after the fourth Test. This is tiring. Almost all games have gone down the wire, they are tired and they have only one physio right now. They had two, but before this one went down along with the chief coach, another couple of the coaches, so they had one physio, so they’ve done a lot of work with that man. And now he tests positive. Now, that is the problem. If it was somebody else, somebody was helping you know in terms of logistics and all that they wouldn’t be this afraid but when this person got it, the physio, I think that’s when they got the jitters a little bit,” said Karthik in an interaction with Sky Sports as quoted by India Today.

How many bubbles can they do?

The Indian cricketer further added that the players were instructed to stay indoors for the duration of the fifth Test, before joining another bio-bubble for the UAE leg of IPL 2021.

“You also have to understand, as soon as this finishes, they have the IPL soon after that the World Cup, and soon after that the New Zealand series and we are talking about literally one-week turnarounds. How many bubbles can they do? When they left, when they rather assembled in India they assembled on May 16 it’s four months almost four months. That’s a lot of time already,” said Karthik.

“Let’s take an example for today, most of the guys today haven’t even slept till 2.30-3 in the morning because they don’t know if they have to be ready for the match, they don’t know because you know it’s very late in India, so they don’t know if they’re going to be able to speak to ECB those kinds of discussions were gone,” he added.

“So most of them haven’t even slept till 3 O’clock so the Test match happening today was out of question almost. It’s whether they can delay it further, but you have to imagine you have to remember this that there is a good chance that in the RTPCR test three days later, someone could test positive and if he’s in the playing 11, then what happens to that person,” stated Karthik.

Fear over taking the virus to the IPL 2021 bubble

The Indian cricketer highlighted the fear of the Indian players with regard to taking the virus to the IPL bubble.

“That is one thing you got to understand, for so long a lot of IPL teams have already come and started quarantined and all of that, the Indian team have not had a major bubble so to say, up until this Test, where they have been told to try not to go out of your rooms even during the game. But now you know, with a positive result for a certain person, it’s completely different but they’ve been informed that you know we are, we are moving from a bubble to a bubble so we have to kind of make bubble in England when we are here,” he stated.

“So for this last test everybody has been told to stay in the rooms don’t move or try and order room service. Play the Test match and get on with it and let’s get to IPL after that so that’s kind of been the mood so to speak (before the match was called off),” concluded Karthik.