Six Players Test Negative in Coronavirus retests; Pakistan Announce 20-Members Squad

Six of the ten Pakistan players who tested positive for coronavirus earlier this week have returned negative results in the second round of testing.

These players are Mohammad Hafeez, Shadab Khan, Wahab Riaz, Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Hasnain and Mohammad Rizwan whereas Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Imran Khan and Kashif Bhatti along with masseur Malang Ali have yielded positive results once again.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has confirmed that two players will be added to the squad for the upcoming Test series in England with Musa Khan and Rohail Nazir earning call-ups to the national side.

Rohail, who was named among the five reserves, will serve as the backup wicketkeeper option since Rizwan, classed as a first-choice Test player, had tested positive for the virus in the first round.

Despite the PCB's original plans of sending a single batch of 28 players to England, it has admitted that "following advice from leading sports science experts and as per the UK government regulations, players who have tested positive during the PCB testing process will be unable to travel on Sunday".

The players left behind will be able to travel to England as soon as they return two negative results.

“This was a challenging and unprecedented process that we have conducted and I am pleased that following a second round of testing, we are able to confirm 20 players and 11 player support personnel will travel to Manchester on Sunday," said PCB chief executive Wasim Khan.

“Due to the increasing number of national cases and availability of testing labs in some players’ hometowns, I think the PCB medical panel have done a good job to get us through this process.

"Based on the national spread of players, there were always going to be some logistical challenges; we have taken a number of learnings from the process that we will take forward with us," he added.

Pakistan's 20-member squad
Azhar Ali (captain), Babar Azam (vice-captain), Abid Ali, Asad Shafiq, Faheem Ashraf, Fawad Alam, Iftikhar Ahmad, Imad Wasim, Imam-ul-Haq, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Abbas, Musa Khan, Naseem Shah, Rohail Nazir, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shan Masood, Sohail Khan, Usman Shinwari, Yasir Shah