England players ban handshakes in the wake of Coronavirus threat

The English cricket team is all set to travel to Sri Lanka where they’ll take part in two ICC Test championship fixtures, starting March 19. And, English captain Joe Root has declared that in the wake of rising Coronavirus threat, the players will not be shaking hands during the tour, but instead they’ll greet each other with fist bumps.

Joe Root addressed the media on Monday on the issue of coronavirus as his team prepared to leave for the island nation. Root revealed that illness is a key issue and the team does not want a repeat of the South African where a plethora of their cricketers suffered from gastroenteritis and flu problems.

“After the illnesses that swept through the squad in South Africa, we are well aware of the importance of keeping contact to a minimum and we’ve been given some really sound and sensible advice from our medical team to help prevent spreading germs and bacteria,” Joe Root said as quoted by au.sports yahoo.com.

“We are not shaking hands with each other, using instead the well-established fist bump, and we are washing hands regularly and wiping down surfaces using the anti-bacterial wipes and gels we’ve been given in our immunity packs,” he added.

Coronavirus is one of the issues that has been threatening to plague the entire world but Root said that there is currently nothing to suggest that the tour will be affected.

“There is no suggestion that the tour will be affected, but of course it is an evolving situation so we are in regular contact with the authorities and will proceed as advised, but at this stage we fully expect the tour to continue as planned,” he added.

Joe Root cautions England against taking Sri Lanka lightly

England will be playing two Tests in Sri Lanka and Joe Root’s men will be hoping to do an encore of 2018 when they whitewashed the Lankans in their own den [3-0].

However, Joe Root has cautioned his side against taking the home side lightly. Root asserted that despite the scoreline, the last series was pretty competitive while also paying tribute to the island nation’s outstanding record at home.

“The conditions will be a bit different with the time of year we are going this time. The three games we played out there last time were all very close with less than 60 runs between the teams in the last two Tests.

“It was an exceptional performance last time and I think we can take a lot of confidence from that in terms of how to play out there. We respect how good a side they are in their own conditions and we’ll find ourselves up against a stiff challenge,” he added.

England will be it without their pace bowling spearheads in James Anderson, Jofra Archer, and Mark Wood- all of whom are grappling with an injury.