BCCI president Sourav Ganguly is unsure whether the fifth and final Test against England, scheduled from Friday, will go ahead after a member of the Indian cricket team’s support staff tested positive for COVID-19, news agency PTI reported. “We don’t know if match will happen at the moment. Hopefully we can get some game,” Ganguly was quoted as saying at the book launch of ‘Mission Domination’ in Kolkata on Thursday. The PTI report added that the RT-PCR test reports of the players are still awaited. Earlier, head coach Ravi Shastri had tested positive for COVID-19 and had to go into isolation along with fellow members of the support staff — Bharat Arun, R Sridhar and Nitin Patel.
India currently lead the five-match Test series 2-1 and need only a draw in Manchester to secure victory in the series, if the match does go ahead.
The visitors had started off by drawing the opening Test at Trent Bridge in a match affected by rain.
In the second Test at Lord’s, India won by 151 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the series but England came back strongly in the third Test at Headingley as India suffered a humiliating defeat by an innings and 76 runs.
The visitors rallied in the fourth Test at the Oval and rode on impressive performances from Rohit Sharma and Shardul Thakur to clinch a win by 157 runs to take an unbeatable 2-1 lead in the series.
India are looking to claim their fourth ever Test series victory on English soil. The Joe Root-led England side, on the other hand, will be aiming to win the final Test and level the series 2-2.
