Shaik Rasheed, Aaradhya Yadav, Vasu Vats, Manav Parakh and Siddarth Yadav are the others to have tested positive
An unnamed BCCI official told PTI, “Three Indian players had tested positive yesterday and were already isolated. In the morning before match our captain and vice-captain also tested positive in Rapid Antigen Test which is not conclusive. So they, as precautionary measure, were pulled out. The players included skipper Yash Dhull and his deputy Shaikh Rasheed. We only had 11 available players and six isolated.”
As such, the Indian team has five travelling reserves: Rishit Reddy, Uday Saharan, Ansh Gosai, Amrit Raj Upadhyay and PM Singh Rathore.
The tournament playing conditions state that if a match cannot be held on schedule [or is abandoned on the day of the match] because of Covid-19-related reasons, the event technical committee will try to find a way to reschedule the game, but the rescheduling will only be done “within reason and without unreasonably impacting on the participating teams or on the staging of other matches”.
At the Under-19 World Cup, the bubbles are being managed in such a way that the wellbeing of the young players – both physical and mental – is taken care of. The ICC is taking cognisance of the fact that it is a long tournament, added with the fact that the young players have not been in such situations before. There will also be mental-health professionals available to the teams as it was during the men’s T20 World Cup last year.