How it happened is difficult to say – Sourav Ganguly on surge in number of Covid-19 cases in bubble

The Board of Control for Cricket in India president Sourav Ganguly has stated that it is difficult to say how the number of Covid-19 cases increased in IPL 2021 despite the bio bubble. The Indian board had to finally suspend IPL 2021 after Amit Mishra and Wriddhiman Saha were tested positive on Tuesday.

The 30th match of the competition between RCB and KKR was rescheduled on Monday after Sandeep Warrier and Varun Chakravarthy were tested positive. Furthermore, Chennai Super Kings batting coach Michael Hussey and bowling coach Laxmipathy Balaji were also tested positive.

Thus, four out of the eight franchises were affected by Covid-19. It was earlier reported Varun Chakravarthy had breached the bio bubble but Ganguly confirmed that there was no breach of bio bubble.

“Was the bubble-breach a case of the biosecurity bubble not being foolproof? Or was there somebody who broke the bubble?” Ganguly was asked in an interview by The Indian Express. 

“I don’t think so. The report we got is that there’s no breach of the bubble. How it happened is very difficult to say. How so many people are getting (infected) in the country is also very difficult to say,” Ganguly said in response.’ 

On the other hand, Ganguly added that there was a discussion to host the IPL 2021 in UAE like the Indian board had done in 2020 but they decided to keep the tournament in India as there were hardly many cases in March. However, the country was hit hard by the second wave of Covid-19 and 400000 cases are getting reported on a daily basis.

“When we decided, the number was not even close to this. We did the England tour successfully,” Ganguly said. 

“It (holding the tournament in the UAE) was discussed, but the (COVID-19 cases) in India in February was (virtually) nothing. It has just gone through the roof in the last three weeks. Before that it was nothing. We discussed the UAE but then decided to do it in India,” he added. 

“As I said, when we decided all this, there was no (Covid spike) in India. So it’s very easy to say now (that tournament could have been held in only one city), but when this tournament was organised, Covid numbers (in India) were nothing. We started with Mumbai and finished there without any case. And Mumbai was very high (number of active Covid cases) then,” he further said. 

Ganguly also assured that BCCI will help all the overseas players to travel back to their countries. The former Indian skipper added that it is too early to predict when the remaining phase of the tournament can be hosted.