Babar Azam, Pakistan players didn’t think about England tour

Zarwash Gulrez

Pakistan’s players were not worried about continuing their white-ball tour of England after an outbreak of Covid-19 cases in the England camp and despite a rising wave of infections through the country said Babar Azam. England’s entire first-team squad was forced to isolate after seven players and management staff tested positive for Covid-19, resulting in call-ups for as many as nine uncapped players in a side led by Ben Stokes for the ODI series.

The outbreak comes as daily case-loads:

That outbreak comes as daily case-loads climb over 25,000 in what is now effectively the third wave, but with lower hospitalizations and deaths than previous surges. Pakistan’s players are among the most-traveled during the pandemic, in England for a second summer running, and most of them have spent time in some form of a bio-secure bubble since the end of May. But their captain Babar Azam insisted before the first ODI in Cardiff that they didn’t think at all about the prospect of calling the tour off, as England had themselves done on a tour of South Africa last winter.
“No, we didn’t think about it, it didn’t come into our minds at any time,” Azam said.

Babar Azam says:

Secondly, “The PCB and ECB have assured us that they will take care of the safety and health of all the squad members. We must understand that these are unprecedented times of Covid-19. I want to acknowledge my players who have spent the last 18 months in and out of bio-secure bubbles and we have prepared in that. The abrupt and wholesale nature of the changes did leave the team with a little bit of homework to catch up with.

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