JCA awaits ministry’s approval to resume team training
COURTNEY Francis, the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) chief executive officer, says the sporting body is awaiting approval from the Ministry of Health and Wellness regarding the resumption of team training in the wake of a player recently testing positive for the novel coronavirus.
Since that positive result was declared over two weeks ago health officials have conducted contact tracing, with some individuals quarantined and a number of tests being carried out.
“After that player tested positive all the other tests — including of the other players and the support staff who might have been affected — came back negative. So once we get that formal go-ahead from the ministry then we can resume practice,” Francis told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.
Jamaican left-arm wrist spinner Dennis Bulli, among a group of cricketers training under the supervision of Jamaica Scorpions Head Coach Andre Coley, was the player who tested positive.
Bulli will miss out on the 2020 Caribbean Premier League (CPL) — which is to begin today in Trinidad and Tobago — after he was drafted by St Kitts and Nevis Patriots.
The Observer has learnt that after being hospitalised he was recently released and is at home recuperating.
As a precautionary measure, batsman Andre Mccarthy and left-arm finger spinner Jeavor Royal, who were to represent Jamaica Tallawahs in this season’s CPL, will also miss out because they might have been exposed to their compatriot Bulli during training. Mccarthy and Royal have since returned negative tests.
Up to Sunday, Jamaica had recorded a total of 1113 confirmed cases of the virus with 14 deaths, while 764 people are said to have recovered. The global count stood at close to 800,000 deaths from approximately 22 million cases, with about 14 million recoveries.
Before news of the positive test emerged, the JCA had been facilitating practice sessions for groups of three or four players at a time.
Francis said that number could be limited to only two players to further reduce the risk of exposure to the virus which causes the COVID-19 disease.
“I should have a virtual meeting with the coach and cricket operations to have dialogue as to how best we can even improve on what we have. We usually have training for three persons per day, but we might go down to two now,” the JCA chief executive told the Observer.
“We at the JCA are happy that, with our processes and protocols, that we were able to provide the ministry with the necessary information so they were able to track persons. All those persons likely to have been affected were traced, and where tests were required they all came back negative,” he reiterated.