Australia vs India: Players to be permitted to come together in particular areas of hotel in Brisbane

The 2021, for Indian Cricket, has begun with a controversy with Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant and three other cricketers dining at a restaurant in Melbourne. This has been followed by team India refusing to be in strict quarantine in Brisbane for the fourth Test. To add fuel to the fire, the Queensland Shadow Minister Health and Ambulance Services, Ros Bates stated that India shouldn’t come if they don’t want to follow the rules.

This put the Brisbane Test in serious doubt. But Cricket Australia (CA) is doing everything it can behind the scenes to make sure the two teams don’t play two back to back Tests in Sydney. Queensland government has shut it borders for travellers from New South Wales (NSW) (with it being the COVID hotspot) with only exception for those involved in a Test match (along with the broadcasting staff) starting from January 15.

But the government has also cleared that all of them will have to be strictly in quarantine and won’t be allowed to go anywhere apart from the stadiums. This had left the Indian team bemused as they were expecting to be treated as normal Australians after completing the mandatory 14-day quarantine.

CA, meanwhile, is trying its best to break the deadlock between the two parties. According to the reports in The Sydney Morning Herald, CA has negotiated with the Queensland government to permit the players to come together in particular areas of the hotel the teams will share in Brisbane. But the only time they will be leaving the hotel is when they are training or playing.

“They can have bubbles within that hotel because they’re going to be playing with colleagues in the match so they’re going to have exposure there. That’s absolutely fine but they can’t leave the hotel and they can’t go out into the general community,” Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said.

Queensland government firm on their stance

Meanwhile, Queensland government is still firm on its stance of having to serve quarantine for the ones coming from Sydney. Young, speaking about the same, informed that an unlinked COVID-19 case was found on Saturday and they cannot take any risk in that regards. He also added that if the third Test would’ve played somewhere else, then the players weren’t needed to quarantine.

“If they come to Queensland after having been in declared hotspots, they will have to quarantine. These are people who are coming from Sydney and we are seeing, as late as yesterday, an unlinked case in Sydney. There is clearly transmission happening in the community down there. So we do need to have those arrangements firmly in place.

“Perhaps if [Cricket Australia] had gone somewhere else [for the third Test] they wouldn’t have had to quarantine when they came to Queensland. That’s a decision they’ve made. They have their reasons and I’m very, very happy to work with them,” Young further added.