Though devoid of any competitive cricket, India’s one-and-a-half-month break between the World Test Championship (WTC) final against New Zealand and the five-Test series against England may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Indian players may not have to live in Bio-bubbles, post to the period of WTC-final.
“When you are done with the WTC, It is a great opportunity to refresh, restructure, prior to departure”- Virat Kohli
Because there will be no match against a local county team, the team will play a couple of intra-squad matches to prepare for the five-Test series in August-September. However, the one-and-a-half-month period following the WTC final (June 18-22) will coincide with the time when lockdown in England would have been lifted.
“I feel like when you are done with the World Test Championship, I think it is a great opportunity to refresh, restructure,” prior to departure the India skipper Virat Kohli had told media.
“I think it (the gap) is absolutely fine. It will give us time to regroup and refresh as a side and [help us] prepare again for a long series and that kind of a set-up is very important before you go into a lengthy series. We know that playing five Tests in England can be very challenging and daunting so we want to have the most amount of time before that series to set for those five games and be in that zone from thereon.”
Certain social distancing and mask-wearing limitations will stay in effect and will be removed just a day prior to the WTC final
Post WTC final period Indian players may not have to live in bio-bubble. Players from India, who will be quarantined upon arrival in Southampton, are expected to have a better experience in England than they had in Australia. On June 21, the lockdown in England will come to an end. Although certain social distancing and mask-wearing limitations will stay in effect, all legal restrictions on social contact will be removed just one day before the World Test Championship final against New Zealand on June 22.
“Hopefully, if things are okay in England we would have finished our quarantine periods [by the time lockdown is lifted]. Just for the guys to be normal for a few days and just disconnect again and understanding that we have a pressure of five-match series,” added Kohli.
“If you have to compete inside a bubble for that long a period of time for the whole tour like we did in Australia, it would have been very, very tough. The fact that [if] we have a little bit of freedom to go out and access the kind of things the locals had, [would] give us a bit more space and a bit more time to reset and refresh,” said the India captain.\
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