Players want quarantine reduced

Desperate to not miss a single game, a big-hitting star has requested BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, on behalf of the players from both countries, to lessen the quarantine period to three days.

New Delhi, Sept. 15: Australia and England’s IPL-bound stars, who are supposed to undergo a sixday quarantine after arriving in the UAE, have requested the BCCI to reduce the duration to three days to ensure their availability from the start of the tournament.

Around 21 players, currently part of an EnglandAustralia white-ball series, will be boarding a chartered flight from Manchester to Dubai, touching base on September 17. They can only be available from September 23, while tournament gets underway from September 19.

Desperate to not miss a single game, a big-hitting star has requested BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, on behalf of the players from both countries, to lessen the quarantine period to three days.

Ganguly, who is in the UAE along with other office-bearers to oversee the tournament’s preparations, wasn’t available for a comment but a senior IPL source admitted that a plea has been made.

“Yes, the BCCI president has received a request. It may have been written by one of the players but it is something that all the English and Australian players, who are coming from the UK, feel,” a senior IPL source said on conditions of anonymity.

The players feel that since they are already in a bio-bubble — first in Australia and then in UK — it’s only logical that “they be allowed to enter from one bio-bubble to another” as they haven’t been in contact with the outside world. “If you go through safety bubble that the ECB created, not even housekeeping was allowed in the rooms of the players. Also they are taking a chartered flight and not a commercial one. So they do have a point when they talk about entering from one biobubble to another,” the source said.