England was forced to choose a completely new squad for the Pakistani ODI series after seven groups returned positive PCR Covid-19 tests on Monday, forcing the entire squad to be self-isolated for 10 days.
Like Boris Johnson announced the appointment of limiting locking since July 19, in Bristol, three English players and four management staff tested positive for Covid-19 after the third odi against Sri Lanka.
Instead of canceling the series, within 18 hours, the ECB has compiled a new squad, which includes nine players who have not been defeated, and it confirms ODI and T20S against Pakistan will continue, with the first odi set for Thursday.
Ben Stokes, who has come out with a broken finger, will return to lead ODI side forces for the first time.
The team is called Ben’s Babes.
Chris Silverwood returned as head coach and Zak Crawley who scored a double century against Pakistan in 2020 was among the players who had not been defeated, all of whom had to isolate at the hotel until the test results returned.
The decision threw the regional championship into the chaos of around 11 to 12 players, including Ben Duckett, pulled to join new forces.
“We hope it will only be some positive and we can isolate them, but given the spread size in the group the only thing to do is to isolate the entire group,” explained the British male cricket managing director, Ashley Giles.
The original team has not been in a tight bio-safe bubble like last year and this year operates in what ECB is called “safe environment”, sharing certain hotel spaces with the public.
A few weeks ago the team could play golf, exercising outdoors and get off coffee-away, said Giles, explained the team had been under a very large mental pressure under strict restrictions, but he said he was sure the player did not violate the protocol.
He said some of them in isolation had “flu symptoms like” and the rest did not show symptoms.
While the three odi against Pakistan is not a big priority for the UK, they are part of the World Cup Super League Cricket ICC, which will help determine which team features in the World Cup Cricket ICC 2023 in India.
“From the performance point of view it was not our best team, we knew it, but it was interesting for some of these people.
Some of them will never think they will play to England,” Giles said.
This is the first Covid outbreak in the English team and the last thing ECB wants is a similar incident ahead of the Indian series in August, which is a very profitable series.
“Pakistan has greatly understood the situation and how we handle it,” Giles said, added the ECB in regular contacts with BCCI.
“I think it’s important we work very carefully with BCCI and we hope that this summer moves forward, we will be able to reduce restrictions around the team and one of the important things is to make everyone multiply,” he said, explaining to everyone.
The team was single vaccinated, not all doubled.
Tom Harrison, the Chief Executive ECB, said, “We have noticed the appearance of the Delta variant, along with our journey from the bio-safe environment enforcement, can increase the opportunity of the plague.
We make a strategic choice to try to adjust the protocol, to support the overall welfare of our players and management staff who have spent many of the last 14 months living in very limited conditions.
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