IPL-SOP: Vacant stands to be extended dressing room, team meetings outdoor
New Delhi: The BCCI's Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the upcoming IPL recommends that teams use "empty stands" as extended dressing rooms for outdoor strategy meetings in order to maintain social distancing.
The IPL, to be held from September 19 in the UAE, won't feature any toss mascot this year which means the BCCI will lose out on another avenue of earning sponsorship money.
While players and support staff's families can join them, they won't be allowed to travel in the team bus and can't leave the bio bubble.
According to the SOP which was handed to the franchises and is in possession of PTI, the teams will be encouraged to use the stands for dressing room purpose which helps in maintaining social distancing.
"The Bio-Secure Environment means only essential staff will be on site and no members of the public will be allowed. Therefore there will be more vacant areas at the stadium and hence the dressing room does not have to remain within the traditional area.
"Venue Cricket Operation teams should consider using appropriate areas beyond the normal dressing room," the SOP states.
Also, the teams have been asked to use electronic team sheets rather than captains carrying hard copies of their playing XI list.
The SOP also states that franchises might install "Scalene Hypercharge Corona Canon (Shycocan), a device that has the ability to neutralise 99.9 per cent of the coronavirus that might be floating in the air in closed spaces."
For the medical team, including physios and masseurs, the SOP recommends that if they need to get in physical contact with the player (massage sessions etc), they have to wear PPE kits.
Players and match officials have been strictly advised to go back to their hotel and have a shower after match days unlike normal times.
The other recommendations are mostly those which ICC has already stated in its SOP published couple of months back, including the ban on saliva to shine the ball.
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Student found dead in hostel room in IIT Kharagpur
Kolkata (PTI): A 22-year-old M Tech student was found dead in his hostel room in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the second such incident reported on the campus within a span of 10 days.
The student, identified as Soham Haldar, was found hanging from the ceiling of his hostel room on Tuesday and he was immediately taken to the institute hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead, an IIT Kharagpur official said.
Haldar, a dual-degree student in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, was a boarder of the Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Hall of Residence on the campus.
Police from the Kharagpur Town police station have initiated a probe into the incident as preliminary findings indicated that it could be a case of suicide, though the exact cause of death will be ascertained following the post-mortem examination, the official said.
In a statement, the institute expressed deep grief over the student's death and said a detailed inquiry has been initiated.
The authorities have informed the family and are extending all possible assistance to them, it added.
Director Suman Chakraborty told PTI that the institute will strengthen the mechanism to identify stressed-out and depressed students and take follow-up steps to address their issues.
The grief-stricken parents of the student, who hailed from Barasat in North 24 Parganas district, have come to the campus and the authorities will speak to them, he said.
"Haldar's friends, faculty and staffers also could not gauge any stress or anxiety in him. But we need to enable students suffering from anxiety and extreme stress to open up their minds and do everything needed to prevent such incidents," he said.
Investigators are also scrutinising CCTV footage from the hostel premises to piece together the sequence of events leading to the incident.
The incident comes close on the heels of another student's death reported on April 18, when 21-year-old Jaibir Singh Dodia, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student from Ahmedabad, allegedly died after jumping from the eighth floor of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hall of Residence. That case is also under investigation.
The back-to-back incidents have once again brought the issue of mental health and student support systems at the institute into focus, especially in view of several such cases reported last year.
