• Home
  • Cricket
  • IPL News: Delhi Capital clash against Punjab Kings moved due to Covid outbreak

IPL News: Delhi Capital clash against Punjab Kings moved due to Covid-19 outbreak

The IPL were forced to change venue for the fixture between the Delhi Capitals and the Punjab Kings after five members of the Capital's contingent tested positive for Covid-19.

The India Premier League match between Delhi Capitals and Punjab Kings has been moved from Mumbai to Pune because of an outbreak of Covid-19 cases among the Dehli squad and support staff.

As a contingency, the IPL also announced that if the match cannot take place on 20 April for whatever reason then it will be rescheduled and played at a later date, rather than being called off. The match will now be played at Brabourne Stadium.

It is not all bad news, though, as enough Dehli players had cleared RT-PCR tests by late Tuesday afternoon for a training session to be permitted. Even though only players and coaches were allowed to attend the evening session at the BKC Ground.
An emergency meeting was called in the morning after the IPL had learned several members of the Dehli Capitals organisation had tested positive for Covid-19.
They then decided to change the venue to "avoid any further incident due to undetected case during a long-distance bus journey in a closed environment" according to the official statement.
As part of the announcement the IPL revealed that among the Capitals team, Patrick Farhart (physio), Chetan Kumar (massage therapist), Abhijit Salvi (doctor), Akash Mane (public relations) and Mitchell Marsh had all tested positive within the past few days.
Unfortunately, while most of the cases were asymptomatic, Marsh was admitted to the hospital. Thankfully, it appears to only be a precautionary measure and reports don't seem to indicate any danger at this stage.
While the announcement of the move was somewhat sudden, it has been a long time coming.
The IPL has been monitoring the situation since Saturday when the news about Farhart broke and even asked Capitals and Royal Challengers Bangalore players not to mingle after the game.
The IPL is on high alert after the 2021 season was curtailed by an outbreak and will be doing everything in its power to preserve the integrity of the schedule.
All members of the Capitals team - except those that tested positive - have returned multiple negative RT-OCR tests since Saturday and will be in isolation until the following weekend, as per protocol.
They will all need to return more negative tests on the two days leading up to the game against the Punjab Kings game to be eligible to play.

More Articles