“It’s steaming outdoor,” Dale Steyn remarked after reaching Dubai at 3am on Saturday along side AB de Villiers and Chris Morris to link up with their Royal Challengers Bangalore colleagues.
The venue is going to be just one aspect of the IPL experience that will be different this year, what with Covid-19-related protocols and procedures the teams will have to adhere to, not to mention the vacant stands. Morris confessed to being “a little bit nervous” as they checked into the team hotel where the Indian contingent of players and strengthen staffers had settled in a day before.
Safety of the players and other members of the travelling party is uppermost on the agenda for all of the teams, and Royal Challengers are no different. Though they need only 55 rooms, they have got booked one entire wing of a luxury hotel, adding up to 150 rooms, and, in Dubai, all of the visitors will serve a mandatory six-day isolation and then be tested (for Covid-19) thrice before being allowed to go into the bio-bubble. Their training sessions begin on August 29.
And here it is RCB fans, the moment you’ve all been waiting for! @ABdeVilliers17, @DaleSteyn62 and @Tipo_Morris have joined the team in Dubai! #PlayBold #TravelDay #IPL2020 pic.twitter.com/l0n09ZV5Jb
— Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) August 22, 2020
“It’s been rather a while since we played the game that we love, so yeah, very hard, very excited to receive going, but a little bit nervous too, to be sincere,” Morris told the franchise’s media team, while Steyn used to be more focused on the weather, wondering “how it’ll be in a few weeks” when the action begins.
“The travelling used to be a bit different to normal, but we made it here. I am having a look forward to my Covid tests,” de Villiers said. “Got a feel for what we are in for this year, and then I am having a look forward to receive to realize everyone, all of the new players, there is a whole new feel in the side, so very excited.”
— Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) August 21, 2020
With the South Africans reaching Dubai, the wait is on for the remainder of the in another country players. Australians Aaron Finch, Kane Richardson and Josh Philippe, who are all headed for England for their white-ball exchanges, will reach around the time of the start of the tournament on September 19. Except them, the squad includes England’s Moeen Ali and Sri Lanka’s Isuru Udana, and Mike Hesson and Simon Katich from some of the strengthen staffers, all of whom, franchise chairman Sanjeev Churiwala said in a press interplay final week, are expected to reach in the following couple of days.
Together with booking all of the wing of the hotel, “gym facilities, restaurants will be permanently 100% secured for the exclusive use of the team; all hotel staff and service members can also be tested and staying in-house,” he said. One staff member will be positioned outdoor the bubble for this period to help the team “coordinate with the outdoor world”.
So far as players, and others, taking their families along to the UAE, Churiwala said that the decision had been left to the individuals.
“Many of the players this time aren’t travelling with their families,” he said. “A couple of of them have made up our minds, it is a personal choice that they have got optioned for, and whether at all their families shuttle with them – in our current assessment it is a very, very small group – everyone will go through the same bio-bubble procedures and protocols as laid down by BCCI. Without any exception.”