Sri Lanka's batting coach Grant Flower tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday, three days after the team returned from the tour of England. It is not clear for now how the news will affect the home series against India, which starts on Tuesday.
With Flower being the only member of the squad to have tested positive so far, Sri Lanka's medical staff are hopeful that the assignment against India will not be affected, especially given that Flower is not believed to have been affected by other squad members in the past. has been in particularly close contact with Day. Since arriving in Sri Lanka on Monday, the team and support staff have been isolated in different rooms, although they had traveled together and were mixing in their bubble before. Provided that Flower's test was not a false positive, medical staff believe he contracted the disease in England.
A member of Sri Lanka's medical staff told ESPNcricinfo, "We have to find out how the flower got infected and what type of virus he got infected with." The original schedule had teams coming out of isolation and going into a team bubble on Friday, but those plans could be put on hold depending on the results of the next round of PCR results held on Thursday evening. More information about Flower's own infestation can affect other members of the squad as well. If it turns out he has the more infectious Delta variant, for example, that could have consequences for other people in the squad.
The news comes in the wake of seven members of England's squad and support staff testing positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday. Those Test results left the entire England squad in isolation, while the board named an entirely new squad for the series against Pakistan.
The news of Flower testing positive is the latest in a string of disruptions within the Sri Lankan team over the past two weeks. Players have been suspended in England after breaking a bio-bubble, a tumultuous end to a contract stalemate with the board, and a change of limited-overs captains are understood to have sparked bad sentiment within the playing group is.