The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday announced that the inaugural World Test Championship (WTC) final, scheduled to be held from June 18 between India and New Zealand in Southampton, will be staged as planned after Britain added India to travel “red list” after a rise in COVID-19 cases in the country.
Significantly, the “red list” bans all travel from the particular country and makes a 10-day hotel quarantine compulsory for UK residents arriving back home.
However, the the global cricket governing body expressed confidence in staging the WTC final in a bio-secure environment.
“The ECB and other members have demonstrated how we can stage international cricket safely in the middle of a pandemic and we are confident that we can continue to do that and that the WTC Final will go ahead as planned in June in the UK,” said the ICC in a statement.
“We are currently discussing with the UK Government the impact of countries being on the ‘red list’,” it added.
The Indian women’s cricket team is also scheduled to tour UK in June while men’s senior team will also play five Tests in England, which will begin on August 4.
Notably, India has reported 2,73,810 new positive cases in the last 24 hours.