Indian Players 'Got The Jitters A Little Bit' After Assistant Physio Tested Covid-19 Positive - Dinesh Karthik Narrates Indian Dressing Room Atmosphere

Senior India cricketer Dinesh Karthik talked about the tense atmosphere in the Indian dressing room building up to the Manchester Test, which eventually got called off on Friday morning due to a covid-19 outbreak in the visiting camp.

Yogesh Parmar, India’s assistant physio, tested positive for the virus on Wednesday. While all the players were tested negative on Thursday, they remain worried as Parmar had been in direct contact with them.

“I spoke to a few of the guys (Indian players). More often than not, a lot of the players after the fourth Test. This is tiring. Almost all games have gone down the wire, they are tired and they have only one physio right now. They had two, but before this one went down along with the chief coach, another couple of the coaches, so they had one physio, so they’ve done a lot of work with that man. And now he tests positive. Now, that is the problem,” Dinesh Karthik told Sky Sports.

“If it was somebody else, somebody was helping you know in terms of logistics and all that they wouldn’t be this afraid but when this person got it, the physio, I think that’s when they got the jitters a little bit.”

The ECB in its statement said India were “unable to field a team” and hence the match was cancelled.

Dinesh Karthik, who has reached the UAE for the IPL after commentating in the first three Tests, stated that the players didn’t know what would happen on the match day and weren’t in the best state of mind for the game.

“Let’s take an example for today, most of the guys today haven’t even slept till 2.30-3 in the morning because they don’t know if they have to be ready for the match, they don’t know because you know it’s it’s very late in India, so they don’t know if they’re going to be able to speak to ECB those kinds of discussions were gone.

“So most of them haven’t even slept till 3 O’clock so the Test match happening today was out of question almost.

It’s whether they can delay it further, but you have to imagine you have to remember this that there is a good chance that in the RTPCR test three days later, someone could test positive and if he’s in the playing 11, then what happens to that person,” he added.

How many bubbles can they do?: Dinesh Karthik

The Kolkata Knight Riders wicketkeeper then highlighted the amount of cricket the players will have been playing till the end of the year, starting from the WTC final in June to the home New Zealand series at home after the IPL and the T20 World Cup.

“You also have to understand, as soon as this finishes, they have the IPL soon after that the World Cup, and soon after that the New Zealand series and we are talking about literally one week turnarounds,” Dinesh Karthik said.

“How many bubbles can they do? When they left, when they rather assembled in India they assembled on May 16 it’s four months almost four months. That’s a lot of time already.”

The BCCI, later on in its statement, has offerered the ECB to play a rescheduled Test match. It is reported that BCCI President Sourav Ganguly will fly to the UK this month to discuss the matter. Also, the series at the moment stands 2-1 in India’s favour and no official announcement has been made yet regarding the result of the fifth Test.

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