Cricket Australia (CA) chief executive Nick Hockley on Monday dismissed reports that Team India has any reluctance on playing the final Test in Brisbane because of stricter quarantine rules there. Hockley said the Indian cricket board was “fully across (and) supportive” of quarantine requirements in Queensland.
Talking to the reporters in Sydney, Nick Hockley said, “We speak to our counterparts at the BCCI daily. We’ve had nothing formal from the BCCI to suggest anything other than they’re supportive. Both teams have wanted to play the schedule as we’ve set out.”
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The third Test in the four-match series is expected to be played at the Sydney Cricket Ground from Thursday. The series is currently locked at 1-1. The fourth Test of the series will be commencing on January 15 at the Gabba in Brisbane. However, some of the media reports have suggested that the Brisbane Test is in jeopardy because of the tourists’ reluctance to travel there in view of the harder quarantine rule.
According to the recent reports claimed that the Indian team wanted the fourth Test to take place in Sydney itself. Queensland has closed its borders for people travelling from New South Wales, of which Sydney is the capital, due to the sudden rise in cases of COVID-19 in the city and surrounding areas.
Both the Indian and Australian teams travelled to Sydney on Monday after all the cricketers and support staff returned negative in latest round of COVID-19 tests. Hockley’s statement came to a couple of days after five Indian players — deputy skipper Rohit Sharma, opener Shubman Gill, stumper Rishabh Pant, pacer Navdeep Saini and batsman Prithvi Shaw — were isolated for an alleged breach of bio-security protocols.
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Cricket Australia, in a media release, said that they are investigating the matter jointly with the BCCI after a video of the players at an indoor restaurant was posted by a fan, who identified himself as Navaldeep Singh on Twitter.
