Tournament’s organising committee to hold emergency virtual meeting with franchises on Thursday
The Pakistan Super League has reported three more cases of players testing positive for Covid-19 on Thursday morning, bringing the tally of total positives in the tournament bubble to seven, of which six are players. Following this development, the tournament’s “organising committee will hold a virtual meeting with the team owners and managements later on Thursday, following which a further update will be provided”, according to the PCB. All teams are set to have a fresh round of testing during the course of the day.
The PCB said the three most-recent cases are from two different teams. They were tested on Wednesday afternoon after reporting symptoms. The board said the new cases were not from any of the teams playing Wednesday’s double-header matches, which rules out players from Karachi Kings, Peshawar Zalmi, Multan Sultans or Quetta Gladiators. As per tournament guidelines, the three players will now quarantine for the next ten days.
The first case reported by the PCB was on March 1, when Islamabad United’s Australian legspinner Fawad Ahmed tested positive for the virus hours before the 12th match of the season. The following day, the PCB said that two more overseas players, along with one local support-staff member – Kamran Khan of Kings – had tested positive. It was later revealed by Gladiators’ Tom Banton on his Twitter handle that he was one of those who were among the positive cases. ESPNcricinfo understands that, as things stand, as long as a franchise has under five positive cases, their games will stay unaffected.
While the dates of the PSL are currently unchanged, there is chatter that the PCB is considering cancelling the Lahore leg of the season and playing all the matches in Karachi. In another recent development, the PCB has offered every member of the PSL bubble Covid-19 vaccine shots if they wish to have them.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo