The Coronavirus pandemic has brought the world on its knees as not just the economy of the globe has taken a nosedive but has also impacted the day to day life of people as many countries around the globe have imposed a lockdown to contain the spread of the Coronavirus.
All the sporting events have either been cancelled or postponed and the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 is no exception, which has been postponed to 15th April from 29th March. Also, the India Vs South Africa ODI (One Day International) series was called off due to the spread of COVID-19.
However, Indian men’s cricket team’s head coach, Ravi Shastri has said that the suspension of all international and domestic cricket is actually not such a “bad thing” for the Indian players as it is giving them some rest after going through a hectic schedule since 2019.
India had just returned from the tour of New Zealand where the team played 5 T20Is, 3 ODIs, and 2 Test matches which were followed by South Africa coming to India for 3 match ODI series. As the first match was called off at Dharamshala, the remaining 2 games scheduled to play in Lucknow and Kolkata were called off to Coronavirus pandemic.
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While talking to Sky Sports, Rabi Shastri said that this rest for the players “cannot be a bad thing because, towards the end of the New Zealand tour, you could see some cracks coming up when it came to mental fatigue, physical fitness and injuries. The amount of cricket we have played over the last ten months, that was beginning to take its toll. Guys like me, and some other guys from the support staff, we left India on May 23 for the World Cup in England. Since then we have been at home for 10 or 11 days,”.
He said that some players are in the teams for all 3 formats of the game and one can “imagine the toll it has taken on them, especially being on the field, adjusting from T20s to Test match cricket and all the travel that goes with that because we travelled quite a lot. After England, we went to the West Indies, then played South Africa here [in India]. We had a season of two and a half months here and then again went off to New Zealand. So it has been tough but a welcome rest for players”.
As a strict measure to contain the community spread of Coronavirus in India, the Indian government has put the country under lockdown for 21 days which started from Wednesday midnight. As of now, on the global level, the novel coronavirus has infected 6 lakh, people, out of which over 27,000 have lost their lives and the US has become the new epicentre of the virus with being the first country to have crossed 1 lakh coronavirus patients mark.
Talking about India, there have been almost 900 cases reported where the novel Coronavirus has claimed the lives of 19 people.
