Sri Lankan cricket team’s data analyst tests positive for COVID-19

Sri Lankan team’s data analyst G T Niroshan has tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of the limited overs series against India, the country’s cricket board said on Friday, a day after its batting coach Grant Flower contracted the virus.

Niroshan is currently being treated as per the medical protocols.

“The Data Analyst of the Sri Lanka National Team, G. T. Niroshan, has tested positive for Covid 19,” Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) said in a statement.

“He was found to be positive, following a PCR Test carried out among the National Players, Coaches, and Support Staff yesterday, following the identification of Grant Flower as Covid Positive.

“Niroshan is now undergoing due medical protocols.” On Thursday, Sri Lanka’s batting coach Flower tested positive for COVID-19, 48 hours after the squad’s arrival from England and less than a week before the home series against India.

All the other players who are quarantining have also been tested.

Outbreak in the England squad

Before testing negative, Sri Lanka’s squad had faced an anxious wait for the results of their PCR tests on returning home, following a COVID-19 outbreak in the England squad after the final match of their tour in Bristol on Sunday.

Sri Lanka is set to take on India in a six-match white-ball series starting July 13. Flower had been isolated from the rest of the squad which is undergoing hard quarantine on arrival.

Flower is a former Zimbabwe batsman and was with the team in England where it lost both the T20 International and ODI series.

Already, three Sri Lankan players are facing an inquiry for breaching the COVID-19 protocols in the U.K. during the tour.

England’s entire ODI squad and support staff were forced into self-isolation after a number of COVID positive cases, forcing the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to name an entirely new 18-man squad ahead of the first ODI against Pakistan on Thursday.