Sri Lanka could go ahead with West Indies tour

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By Bipin Dani

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is “likely” to go ahead with the tour of West Indies, it is learnt.

 According to highly placed sources in both SLC and Cricket West Indies (CWI), the team may travel a little later than original scheduled, which was on February 18.
“All players, who are self-quarantined, have been asked to undergo PCR tests at their closest medical facility on Wednesday (results will be known on Thursday) and subject to all clearance we will soon decide about the training schedules,” a source close to SLC said.

Earlier this month it was reported that Sri Lanka’s tour of the West Indies could be postponed after Coach Mickey Arthur and batsman Lahiru Thirimanne tested positive for COVID-19.
“Both are recovering well but Thirimanne may not be able to go because we don’t advise him to start training before another two weeks. We have no issue sending Mickey Arthur as coach,” the source further added.

 At present, both boards are not discussing the scrapping of the Tests to play only the limited over matches. “The Tests are part of the WTC (World Test Championship) and we expect to play them”, Johnny Grave, the CEO of the CWI said.     “We had a good meeting with SLC this morning. We are meeting with them again on Thursday once their latest round of PCR test results are known”.

 “Sri Lanka have an obligation and contractual commitment under the ICC FTP to tour the Caribbean in March 2021 for 3 T20Is, 3 ODIs and 2 Tests so I still expect them to tour and we will know more about the timings once they have their players’ PCR test results back on Thursday,” Grave concluded.