India Tour of South Africa: COVID-19 scare – Ind A coaches test false positive: India men’s tour of South Africa that begins December 26 faced a Covid scare last evening when the Covid result of two India A team coaches in South Africa came out positive. India A team is playing its 3rd and final four-day game in Bloemfontein and as per protocols all players, along with the support staff, underwent RT-PCR tests on Wednesday morning. While the players returned positive, two India A coaches were said to Covid positive. However, further investigation has revealed their result as ‘false positives’. Follow InsideSport.in for more updates
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India Tour of South Africa: Sigh of relief for India ahead of SA tour, ‘Initial Covid 19 result of two IND A coaches was a false positive
“On further investigation, the labs confirmed the test as negative, indicating that the initial result was a false positive,” Dr Shuaib Manjra, the chief medical officer of Cricket South Africa was quoted on The Indian Express.
As per the report, the results of the two coaches came out positive on Day 3 of the ongoing 4-day match, and both the coaches were asked to isolate for the next 24 hours as the play went on as per schedule.
However, the latest update must have come as a sigh of relief for BCCI as well as the Indian squad which was announced yesterday.
Sairaj Bahutule, Saurashtra’s Sitanshu Kotak, and Assam’s Subhadeep Ghosh are with India A in South Africa as bowling, batting, and fielding coaches respectively. There was also a Covid scare right before the tour game kicked off as batting coach Sairaj Bahutule complained of fever and isolated himself in his room for 48 hours. However, his reports came back negative.
Meanwhile, Ishan Kishan missed out on a hundred but played a vital part, helping India A secure the first-innings lead before South Africa A put on a solid show with the bat in the second innings to end Day 3 of the third four-day game at 196/1 in Bloemfontein on Wednesday. Sarel Erwee and Hamza will be eying to continue the dominance while the visitors will be looking to bounce back chipping in some early wickets on the final day.
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BCCI on Wednesday announced an 18-member Test squad for South Africa tour that begins December 26. Virat Kohli will lead the side and underfire veterans in Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, and Ishant Sharma have managed to retain their spots. However, Rahane couldn’t retain his ‘vice-captaincy tag’ which has been handed to Rohit Sharma.
India’s Test squad: Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wk), Wriddhiman Saha (wk), R Ashwin, Jayant Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Mohd. Shami, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur, Md. Siraj.
Standby Players: Navdeep Saini, Saurabh Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Arzan Nagwaswalla.
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