The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday announced that it is confident of hosting the World Test Championship (WTC) final between India and New Zealand as planned in Southampton in June. However, this news came after the UK put India on its travel “red list” as a precautionary measure after 103 positive cases of COVID-19 variant first identified in India.
However, the final of the WTC is going to be played in a bio-secure bubble at the Hampshire Bowl in Southampton where the final is scheduled to start on June 18 and end on June 22 with June 23 kept as the reserve day too.
“We are currently discussing with the UK Government the impact of countries being on the ‘red list’. The ECB and other Members have demonstrated how we can stage international cricket safely in the middle of a pandemic and we are confident that we can continue to do that and that the World Test Championship Final will go ahead as planned in June in the UK,” ICC said in a statement via Twitter.
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Meanwhile, New Zealand was the first team to reach the ICC World Test Championship final and India later joined following their home series win over England.
While speaking in the parliament, UK health secretary Matt Hancock said, “We have recently seen a new variant first identified in India. We have now detected 103 cases of this variant. On a precautionary basis, we have made the difficult but vital decision to add India to the Red List,” Hancock said.
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“This means anyone who is not the UK or Irish resident or a British citizen cannot enter the UK if they’ve been in India in the previous 10 days,” he concluded.
As far as the players are concerned, they are currently playing in the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in India which started earlier this month and will conclude on May 30. While the matches are taking place behind closed doors now amid the crunch time of COVID-19, a call will be taken if the crowd can be allowed in the stadium in the latter half of the league.
