Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) players and staff have started arriving at a hotel in Mumbai for serving their seven-day quarantine period before their training camp gets underway for the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Dinesh Karthik, Varun Chakaravarthy, Rahul Tripathi, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Sandeep Warrier, Vaibhav Arora and support staff including assistant coach Abhishek Nayar and assistant bowling coach Omkar Salvi were among the first set of people to arrive at the hotel on Saturday.
Overseas players Sunil Narine and Andre Russell are expected to join soon, while the rest of the player arrival details are yet to be finalised.
As per the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) guidelines, all players, support staff and management entering the bubble need to undergo a seven-day quarantine in their hotel rooms. Every individual will be tested multiple times during this period, and upon returning the necessary negative results, will be allowed to come out of their rooms and commence outdoor training and practice session.
The testing will continue as per BCCI’s guidelines throughout the tournament, similar to how it was conducted last season in the UAE.
For those players involved in the upcoming India-England ODI series – Eoin Morgan, Shubman Gill, Kuldeep Yadav and Prasidh Krishna – the BCCI has made a provision allowing them a bubble-to-bubble transfer without having to serve a quarantine again.
“Players coming directly from the Bubble created for India vs England series may be permitted to join the franchise squad without serving the mandatory quarantine period, provided they satisfy the given criteria,” read the guidelines.
The IPL is set to begin on April 9 with the final scheduled to be played on May 30. The designated venues for the tournament are Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Bengaluru. None of the teams will be playing in their home venues and KKR will be playing their group stage matches in Chennai, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Bengaluru.