Support staff of national cricket team test COVID-19 negative

All members of the support staff and officials of the national cricket team have tested negative for COVID-19, a source from Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) confirmed.

Earlier, cricketer Saif Hassan and trainer Nicholas Lee tested positive. Both of them were advised to isolate for two weeks.

National team officials includes manager of cricket operation Sabbir Khan, senior media manager Rabeed Imam, chief physician Debashis Chowdhury, physician Monzur Hossain, medical assistant Nurul Islam and traiing and gym staff. All of them have been tested negative along with the support staff including three staff of indoor facilities, massage men and team boys.

BCB is trying to ensure that none of its employees are affected with the deadly virus. Earlier, during the individual training programme of the cricketers, a member of support staff showed COVID-19 symptoms. As a result, BCB halted the programme for five days. However, the individual training programme resumed on Wednesday.

The medical team of BCB has created a special protocol to keep the players and support staff safe from the virus. As per the protocol, every player and every member of support staff has to obey the special rules.

Bangladesh team is now gearing up for their first three-match Test series in six years, which will take place in Sri Lanka from October 24. Mominul Islam-led Bangladesh team will fly for Sri Lanka later this month. Before that, Tigers will have a residential training camp in Dhaka. After reaching Sri Lanka, Tigers will have a longer training camp in Colombo.

Due to the COVID-19 situation, at least 14 international fixtures of Bangladesh have been postponed. Of them, only the series against Sri Lanka is rescheduled which was initially scheduled to take place in July-August instead of the new schedule in October-November.

The other series which has also been postponed are home series against Australia, away series against New Zealand and Ireland and one Test and ODI against Pakistan. BCB hopes all of these matches will take place in the coming month.

“We are in regular contact with the boards of Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and Ireland. We will surely play the games which have been postponed due to the Covid-19. But it will take time. A team like Australia will be very busy in the coming months. So it will be tough to get their schedule. But still, we are trying our best to make sure that we play those games,” Nizamuddin Chowdhury, the CEO of BCB, had earlier said to the media.