No bio-bubbles from India-South Africa series, says Jay Shah

BCCI will not conduct the forthcoming T20I series between India and South Africa in a bio-bubble. “If I’m not wrong, the bio-bubble for IPL-2022 was the last. For the India-SA series onwards, players will be tested (for covid), but will not be any bio-bubble,” BCCI secretary Jay Shah told TOI in an exclusive interview here on Friday.

Since Covid-19 struck, cricketers have been forced to play sport in strict bio-bubbles, which have caused mental fatigue, resulting in many of them opting out of key tours and games. However, Shah says that with their families too staying with them in the bubbles, the players also enjoyed being there. “Yes, it’s tough for the players.

However, they got a family-like atmosphere inside the hotel bio-bubble. In the case of the IPL, we had hotels dedicated to each team. The whole tournament was held at one place.

All the teams had their lounges, recreational centres (to relax and unwind). So, they also enjoyed it,” said the BCCI secretary. Did he get worried when the Delhi Capitals camp was struck by multiple covid cases during IPL-15? “My reaction was that ‘we’ve to move on.’ For us, the safety and security of the players is paramount, but still, we decided to move on.

We shifted DC’s match from Pune to Mumbai.We got all the players/support staff struck by covid treated properly. We kept conducting RT-PCR tests for DC’s members on a daily basis. Fortunately, all DC members were fine later,” said Shah.