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England set to fly for Sri Lanka tour after clearing COVID-19 tests

WION Web Team
New Delhi, IndiaUpdated: Jan 01, 2021, 08:09 PM IST
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England are all set to fly to Sri Lanka as planned on Saturday for their two-match Test series after the touring party tested negative for coronavirus, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said on Friday.

England are all set to fly to Sri Lanka as planned on Saturday for their two-match Test series after the touring party tested negative for coronavirus, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said on Friday.

The squad will immediately undergo two weeks of quarantine and training in Hambantota and during the period, all the touring party will be tested every two days. 
England will then embark on a journey to Galle for the first Test where they will stay in a bio-secure bubble.

"Following the Covid-19 testing on 30 December, the touring party for the Sri Lanka Test tour have all tested negative. We fly tomorrow (Saturday) evening," said an ECB spokesperson.

The England tour of Sri Lanka was originally scheduled to be played in March but was postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The first Test is set to go live from January 14-18 with the second Test scheduled from January 22-26 in Galle. There were major fears for the rescheduled dates following the identification of a new and massively contagious strain of the coronavirus.

The recent white-ball series in South Africa was also cut short after a handful of positive cases at the team hotel. However, the ECB and SLC went ahead with the plan for the two-Test series which will be played under the banner of ICC World Test Championship (WTC).

England are currently fourth in the ICC World Test Championship rankings with 60.8 win percentage while Sri Lanka are seventh with just 26.8 win percentage as the final few series under ICC WTC approaches thick and fast.