The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 will kick off on March 31 with a coveted clash between the Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings. Since the last edition, a lot has happened in relation to Covid, with the world's major sporting events finally opening up to fans and getting rid of bio-secure bubbles and the like.
And while the IPL will also be done with the stress of such bubbles, they are sticking to one rule that they implemented during the three years that Covid devastated the sport.
The cash-rich franchise will stick to its 2022 policy of asking players who test positive for the virus to go through a week-long isolation period before rejoining their teams.
"While there has been a decline in the number of Covid-19 cases in India we still have to be careful of the emerging strains which are becoming a concern at regular intervals," said the IPL's medical guidelines, which were distributed to franchises this week.
"Positive cases must be isolated for maximum of seven days. Positive cases will not be allowed to participate in any match or any form of activity/event during the period of isolation.
"From day five, they can undergo a RT-PCR, provided they must be must be asymptomatic without any medication for 24 hours. Once the first result is negative the 2nd test must be done 24 hours apart. Only after obtaining two negative RT-PCR tests 24 hours apart i.e. day five and day six, can they rejoin the group,"the guidelines added.
This time around, the tournament's medical staff will carry out these tests only for people who are actually displaying symptoms of the virus, and not all the players as was the norm for the last three years. Any participant continuing to test positive even after day seven would need to present two negative tests 12 hours apart before rejoining the group.
This is different from what some organisers of the sport have followed in other competitions. Case in point is Australian allrounder Tahlia McGrath who became the first cricketer to play a match despite testing positive for Covid-19 in the Commonwealth Games T20 final against India in 2022.
The same happened with Australian wicketkeeper Matthew Wade during the men's T20 World Cup. He tested positive, was named part of the Australian team in the group stages against England but the match was which was eventually washed out.
With the ICC allowing players to participate in such matches it remains to be seen whether they will retain the same process during the ODI World Cup in India later in 2022.
READ ALSO:
IPL 2023: Royal Challengers Bangalore to retire jersey numbers donned by two legendary cricketers
