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Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Thangarasu Natarajan is the first Indian Premier League player to test positive before the Delhi Capital team.
Organizers said Sunrisers Hyderabad bowler Thangarasu Natarajan has become the first Indian Premier League (IPL) player to test positive for the coronavirus before the team game on Wednesday.
Natarajan and six close contacts, including all-around player Vijay Shankar, have been isolated from the players who will face the Delhi Capital team in the 2020 tournament in Dubai.
However, the IPL match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and the capital of Delhi will still be played at the Dubai International Stadium.
Hyderabad said Natarajan was “asymptomatic.” Earlier Wednesday, six contacts and other players tested negative.
Team manager Vijay Kumar, physical therapist J Shyam Sundar, doctor Anjana Vannan, logistics manager Tushar Khedkar and pitcher Periyasamy Ganesan will be quarantined.
Due to the surge in COVID-19 deaths in India, IPL resumed in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday after being suspended for five months.
The team returning to the UAE tournament has been placed in a strict biosphere.
For the first time since the December 2019 pandemic, the UAE allowed a limited audience to enter three venues including Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.
30-year-old Natarajan has just returned from an injury during a trip to Australia in India in January. But his absence is a huge blow to Hyderabad, which is at the bottom of the rankings.
The team led by New Zealand’s Kane Williamson but has missed England star Jonny Bierstow must win the remaining games to get a place in the play-offs.
Bierstow is one of many English and international stars, including Australia’s Ben Stokes and Pat Cummins, who withdrew from leagues affected by the pandemic.
Bairstow was replaced by West Indies batsman Shane Rutherford, who was the leading scorer in the first half of the season with 248 runs in seven games, including two and a half centuries.
Australia’s David Warner was stripped of Hyderabad’s captainship midway through the season and was eliminated in one stage, and is expected to return in full.
After the COVID-19 surge disrupted the first half of the game, foreign players fled India and many did not return.
The UAE leg of the IPL started when the Chennai Super Kings defeated the holder Mumbai Indians in the first game, pushing Delhi from the top of the standings.
The richest T20 league in the world will end two days before the start of the T20 World Cup in UAE and Oman on October 15.
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