England Test cricket captain Joe Root said that his players will not be shaking hands in their upcoming tour of Sri Lanka in a bid to keep away from the perils of the globally spreading Coronavirus. Root was interviewed on Coronavirus on Monday as the England team prepared to leave for the Two match Test series against Sri Lanka starting from March 19.
Apparently, England players were hit by a series of gastroenteritis and flu problems during the first Test match of their recently concluded tour of South Africa.
“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,” Root said.
“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.
“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.” the England skipper added.
England team is scheduled to play their first of the two practice games against the Sri Lanka Board Presidents XI in Katunayake from March 7 ahead of the Tests, which will also form part of the ICC World Test Championship. England had won 3-0 in their last tour of Sri Lanka but the Yorkshire batsman is expecting tough challenges on this tour.
“The conditions will be a bit different with the time of year we are going this time,” he said. 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.” Root concluded.
