MAN­CHES­TER, Eng­land – Head coach of the West In­dies Team Phil Sim­mons will spend five days in iso­la­tion as a pre­cau­tion af­ter leav­ing the se­cure West In­dies fa­cil­i­ty to at­tend a fu­ner­al of his fa­ther-in-law, who had passed away be­fore the team’s re­cent as­sem­bly in Man­ches­ter on Fri­day. It means he will miss the team's fi­nal warm-up match start­ing on Mon­day, a four-day match in­volv­ing two teams from the West In­dies 25-man squad at Emi­rates Old Traf­ford, Eng­land.

In keep­ing with the COVID-19 pro­to­cols for the tour, Sim­mons will al­so be test­ed at the start and the end of the iso­la­tion pe­ri­od. If he is re­turned neg­a­tive, he will then re­join the tour­ing par­ty.

Be­fore the start of the tour Sim­mons had al­ready sought and was giv­en the nec­es­sary per­mis­sions from med­ical of­fi­cials to leave the team’s base in Man­ches­ter. The en­tire process of his ex­it and re-en­try to the bio-se­cure lo­ca­tion was ap­proved and man­aged by the med­ical teams of the CWI and Eng­land and Wales Crick­et Board (ECB) and strict­ly fol­lowed pro­to­cols set up be­fore the tour which ad­dressed such sce­nar­ios.

Sim­mons trav­elled to the small pri­vate fam­i­ly cre­ma­tion and re­turned on Fri­day, fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of the first in­ter-squad three-day warm-up match. It is a well-es­tab­lished pol­i­cy for CWI play­ers and team of­fi­cials on tour to be giv­en per­mis­sion com­pas­sion­ate leave as and when need­ed.

Fol­low­ing his re­turn, Sim­mons has been in self-iso­la­tion away from oth­er mem­bers of the squad, ex­act­ly as had al­ways been planned. He has so far un­der­gone two COVID-19 tests since Fri­day – both of which came back neg­a­tive. He will have an­oth­er test on Wednes­day be­fore he will re-join the squad as they pre­pare for the three-match #RaiseThe­Bat Se­ries against Eng­land.

In the in­ter­im, the play­ers are be­ing pre­pared by the oth­er mem­bers of the coach­ing staff, led by ex­pe­ri­enced As­sis­tant Coach Rod­dy Es­t­wick, for their fi­nal in­ter-squad warm-up match. Be­cause of the con­ve­nient de­sign and lo­ca­tion of the team ho­tel, Sim­mons will be able to view the prac­tice match from his ho­tel room bal­cony.

Dr Dono­van Ben­nett, Chair­man of CWI’s Med­ical Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee said: “The Med­ical Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee is hap­py with the feed­back we have been re­ceiv­ing from our med­ical as­so­ciates in the Unit­ed King­dom. Phil Sim­mons ad­hered to the process of man­aged ex­it and re-en­try as dis­cussed with and agreed on be­tween CWI and the ECB. These con­tin­gen­cies were put in place be­fore the tour was agreed on and all ex­its from the bio-se­cure en­vi­ron­ment must be agreed by both med­ical teams be­fore con­ces­sions are giv­en.”

Fast bowler Alzarri Joseph told re­porters on Sat­ur­day his ab­sence would not im­pact prepa­ra­tions.

“That doesn’t re­al­ly dis­rupt our prepa­ra­tions,” the 23-year-old said. “We have our jobs to do, we have prepa­ra­tions to keep go­ing on.

“We have a lot of coach­ing staff here that are very sup­port­ive of each play­er so that’s not re­al­ly a prob­lem for any­one.”

West In­dies ar­rived in Eng­land on June 9 and un­der­went two weeks of quar­an­tine, while beef­ing up prepa­ra­tions in the nets. They played their first “in­ter-squad” three-day tour game last week.

The tourists have been pro­hib­it­ed from en­gag­ing in the tra­di­tion­al warm-up fix­tures against coun­ty sides in an at­tempt to lim­it their in­ter­ac­tion with the pub­lic.

It has been just one of sev­er­al strin­gent pro­to­cols put in place for the tour be­ing played amid the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, which has al­ready re­sult­ed in 310,000 in­fec­tions and 43, 000 deaths in the Unit­ed King­dom.

Glob­al­ly, the virus has been re­spon­si­ble for near­ly 10 mil­lion in­fec­tions and near­ly half a mil­lion deaths.

West In­dies ar­rived in the UK on a se­cure char­tered flight, were trans­port­ed to Old Traf­ford in sev­er­al bus­es to en­sure so­cial dis­tanc­ing and have been hun­kered down ever since.

All three Tests – the first is card­ed for Southamp­ton and the last two at Old Traf­ford – will be played be­hind closed doors with strict sani­ti­sa­tion and so­cial dis­tanc­ing mea­sures in place.

MATCH SCHED­ULE

Warm-up match­es

Three-day at Emi­rates Old Traf­ford – June 23-25

Four-day at Emi­rates Old Traf­ford – June 29 to Ju­ly 2

Wis­den Tro­phy Test Se­ries

1st Test at Ageas Bowl, Southamp­ton – Ju­ly 8-12

2nd Test at Emi­rates Old Traf­ford, Man­ches­ter – Ju­ly 16-20

3rd Test at Emi­rates Old Traf­ford, Man­ches­ter – Ju­ly 24-28

Test Squad: Ja­son Hold­er (cap­tain), Jer­maine Black­wood, Nkrumah Bon­ner, Kraigg Brath­waite, Shamarh Brooks, John Camp­bell, Ros­ton Chase, Rah­keem Corn­wall, Shane Dowrich, Chemar Hold­er, Shai Hope, Alzarri Joseph, Ray­mon Reifer, Ke­mar Roach

Re­serve Play­ers: Sunil Am­bris, Joshua DaSil­va, Shan­non Gabriel, Keon Hard­ing, Kyle May­ers, Pre­ston Mc­Sween, Mar­quino Mind­ley, Shayne Mose­ley, An­der­son Phillip, Os­hane Thomas, Jomel War­ri­can

(CMC)