Kane-Williamson-and-Virat-Kohli

Picture Credit: Twitter

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced on Monday that they are hopeful that the World Test Championship (WTC) final between India and New Zealand can take place according to the plans in Southampton in June amid the crunchtime of the COVID-19. This came after the UK put India on its travel “red list” as 103 cases of a new coronavirus variant have been reported in India.

While the final of the inaugural season is scheduled to be played from June 18 to June 22, the entire match will take place in a bio-secure bubble at the Hampshire Bowl in Southampton.

“We are currently discussing with the UK Government the impact of countries being on the ‘red list’. 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 World Test Championship Final will go ahead as planned in June in the UK,” ICC said in a statement via Twitter.

Notably, New Zealand was the first team to reach the final of the ICC World Test Championship followed by Virat Kohli-led India, after they convincing registered series win over England at home.

While speaking in the parliament, UK health secretary Matt Hancock said that the new variant assessment platform has been put by the UK and they are allowing any country in the world to use those genomic sequencing capabilities if they want to know what is going on in their countries regarding the deadly virus.

“We have recently seen a new variant first identified in India. We have now detected 103 cases of this variant,” Hancock said.

“On a precautionary basis, we have made the difficult but vital decision to add India to the Red List. This means anyone who is not the UK or Irish resident or a British citizen cannot enter the UK if they’ve been in India in the previous 10 days,” he further added.

Meanwhile, Hancock also added that the UK, Irish residents and British citizens, who were in India in the past 10 days before they reach, will have to maintain the mandatory quarantine period of 10 days from the time of their arrival in the country. However, the rules will impose at 4 a.m. local time (0300 GMT) on Friday as well.