COVID strikes IPL: CSK-RR clash to be rescheduled due to bowling coach L Balaji's positive report
New Delhi, May 4: The BCCI will reschedule Wednesday's IPL match between Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals here as CSK has been forced into hard quarantine after bowling coach L Balaji tested positive for COVID-19.
As per the Board's Standard Operating Procedure, anyone who has come in contact with an infected person has to undergo six days of hard quarantine and return three negative RT-PCR reports during the course of it.
"Tomorrow's match at the Arun Jaitley Stadium between CSK and RR will be rescheduled as per SOP rules. As Balaji was in contact with the players, all of them have gone into hard quarantine. They are supposed to be tested everyday," a senior BCCI official told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
When CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan was contacted, he said that CSK had informed BCCI about Balaji's RT-PCR result.
"From our end, we had informed that Mr Balaji has tested positive and as per SOP our players have been isolated," Viswanathan said.
This is the second IPL match to be rescheduled after Monday's Kolkata Knight Riders vs Royal Challengers Bangalore game was postponed owing to a couple of KKR players -- Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier -- testing positive.
Delhi is hosting Mumbai Indians vs SunRisers Hyderabad clash this evening.
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Cong's Surat candidate whose nomination form was rejected resurfaces, says party betrayed him
Surat (PTI): Suspended Congress leader Nilesh Kumbhani, whose nomination form was rejected over discrepancies leading to BJP winning the Surat Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat unopposed, resurfaced on Saturday after 20 days and alleged it was the grand old party that had betrayed him first in 2017.
Kumbhani said he was silent all these days because of his respect for state party president Shaktisinh Gohil and the party's Rajkot Lok Sabha candidate Paresh Dhanani.
"Congress leaders are accusing me of betrayal. However, it was the Congress which betrayed me first in the 2017 assembly elections when my ticket for Kamrej Assembly seat in Surat was cancelled at the last moment. It was the Congress which made the first mistake, not me," Kumbhani told reporters here.
"I did not want to do this but my supporters, office staff and workers were upset because the party is being run by five self-proclaimed leaders in Surat and they neither work nor allow others to work. Though AAP and Congress are part of INDIA alliance, these leaders raised objections when I used to campaign with AAP leaders here," he claimed.
Asked if the turn of events in the ongoing Lok Sabha poll was his revenge on the Congress, Kumbhani refused to give a direct reply and reiterated his charge about cancellation of ticket in the 2017 state polls.
Kumbhani, who had earlier served as a Congress corporator in the Surat Municipal Corporation, fought the 2022 assembly polls from Kamrej but lost to the BJP.
On April 21, Kumbhani's nomination form was rejected after his three proposers submitted affidavits to the district returning officer claiming they had not signed on the document.
Incidentally, the nomination form of the Congress' substitute candidate Suresh Padsala was also rejected, ending the party's presence in the fray.
On April 22, BJP's Mukesh Dalal was declared elected unopposed from Surat after all other candidates, including one from the BSP, withdrew their nominations.
Due to a pre-poll alliance with Congress, the AAP had not fielded its candidate from Surat.
Kumbhani had gone incommunicado since April 22. He was later suspended by the Congress, which blamed him for the rejection of the nomination form and also accused him of "connivance with the BJP".
Lok Sabha polls were held in a single phase in Gujarat on May 7. Results for 25 out of the state's 26 seats will be declared on June 4.
