Sri Lanka batting coach Grant Flower refused vaccination, requested for Pfizer

Sri Lanka batting coach Grant Flower was one of the members who tested positive for COVID-19 when he reached the island nation after the completion of the limited-overs series against England. Interestingly as per the latest reports, he refused to take the first dose of the vaccine, as he wanted to take Pfizer instead.

While the rest of the players and support staff took the vaccine arranged by the SLC, Flower rejected the Chinese and Russian vaccines. The Former Zimbabwe player wanted Pfizer because he feared he could not travel to his country if he did not get one, confirmed SLC Secretary Mohan de Silva to Daily Mirror.

Accordingly, the SLC will administer Flower with Pfizer, when he recovers from the COVID. The 50-year-old had tested positive after seven members tested positive in the England camp, on Sri Lanka’s white-ball tour which ended on July 4. With the team returning to the island nation, all the players and support staff were told to go into isolation, to avoid any possible threat of COVID-19. Reportedly, Flower contracted the deadly virus during that time.

India’s series against Sri Lanka rescheduled to begin on July 17

Now, the news has come that the series is rescheduled and will begin on July 17 instead of July 13, due to positive cases in the Sri Lankan camp. Now the Indian management will get some more time to possibly explore what possible combinations they can look out for, once the white-ball series starts on Saturday.

Indian head coach for the Lanka series, Rahul Dravid spoke about wanting a few practice games, before the series, which got declined. However, the Indian team managed with few intra-squad games and possibly look to shortlist few candidates, before the white-ball series starts. Dravid also spoke about giving chances to fringe players ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup which is set to begin in October.

Apart from the original squad selected for the showpiece event, the Indian selectors will also look to include few reserve players in the squad as backup options to the original playing XI.