A sickness bug in the England cricket squad on Wednesday compelled Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to hold discussions about the commencement of the first Test match at Pindi Cricket Stadium Rawalpindi.
The first Test of the three-match series is sched-uled to commence on Thursday. Several England players and officials, including captain Ben Stokes caught a viral infection.
The unwell players have been advised to rest, and do not participate in the final practice session on the eve of the match.
“The PCB and ECB are in discussions regarding the commencement of the 1st #PAKvENG Test as some England players are down with viral infection. The PCB continues to monitor the situation, is in contact with the ECB and will provide further up-dates in due course,” the PCB said on its twitter account.
“We are in discussions with the PCB regarding the start of the first Test due to a viral infection within our camp,” the ECB said on its official twitter handle.
England top-order batsman Joe Root, who took questions in the pre-match press conference instead of captain Stokes also spoke on the situation in the English camp.
“There’s going to have to be Marcus Trescothick, Rob Key and Brendon McCullum – there’s going to have to be a new top three for tomorrow,” he re-sponded jokingly when asked for an update on the England squad.
“As far as I am aware, there’s a few guys not feeling 100 per cent. I didn’t feel great yesterday and I woke up a lot better today. So hopefully it’s just 24 hours of virus; don’t think food poisoning or Covid or anything like that.
“It’s just one of those things that we have unfor-tunately picked up as a group. We are trying to do absolutely everything right to make sure that we prepared really well for this game and sometimes life throws these kinds of things at you as a squad, and we just got to see how we pull up tomorrow and do be right and ready to go.—APP
