Mahmudul Hasan Joy was the only player to test positive for COVID-19 in the pre-tournament tests of all players, officials and support staff who are taking part in the Bangabandhu Twenty20 Cup.
Bangladesh Cricket Board chief physician Debashis Chowdhury confirmed of Mahmudul’s infection and said the Chattogram team management will now decide how they will handle his ailment, agencies report.
“We made the arrangements to run the tests and provided the results to the teams. Now the teams will take the next step accordingly,” Debashish told New Age. Mahmudul, who was part of the Under-19 World Cup winning Bangladesh team and is now part of the High Performance unit of BCB, is in isolation after learning about his infection, informed Chattogram team manager Sheikh Mohammed Sohel Rana. “Mahmudul Hasan, one of our players, tested COVID-19 positive. He is in isolation at the BCB Academy,” Sohel told.
According to the draft rules, in case of any injury, illness and unavailability of a player, teams may request for a replacement but the replacement player would have to be of the same or lower grade and from the unsold players’ list. But Chattogram is not looking for an alternative for the top order batsman and will wait for his recovery, said Sohel.
“At this moment we are not looking for an alternative. He will join us when he will be available,” said the team manager. All the five teams practiced on Saturday at the BCB Academy ground in a bio-secure environment and made their check-ins at a designated hotel.Earlier, around 200 cricketers, support staff and official provided their sample for COVID-19 tests on Friday.