Australia’s three-game ODI series against New Zealand begins Friday and Justin Langer said there were no plans to change how the team interacts in the dressing room or on the field. Despite England enforcing a strict fist bump greeting policy to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, Australia’s cricketers will continue to shake hands, Australia’s coach Justin Langer said on Monday.
According to the reports, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of three Australians, with the global outbreak forcing a host of sporting fixtures around the world to be canceled or played behind closed doors. Australia’s three-game one-day series against New-Zealand will begins on Friday and despite of the fact that deadly coronavirus has already claimed live of three people in Australia, Coach and Langer said there were no plans to change how the team interacts in the dressing room or on the field. “No, we’ll keep shaking hands… there’s plenty of hand sanitizer in the Australian kits,” he told to a leading portal.
He further added, “I’m sure we’ll just keep shaking hands and move on from that”. Whereas England Captain Joe Root said last week that his players would take sensible precautions to keep themselves safe on their tour of Sri-Lanka.
“We are not shaking hands with each other, using instead the well-established fist bump, and we are washing hands regularly and wiping down surfaces using the anti-bacterial wipes and gels we’ve been given in our immunity packs,” he said.
Langer admitted that some players were exhausted heading into the series against New Zealand has featured in all three formats almost continuously since last year’s World Cup, including the likes of leading batsmen Steve Smith and David Warner.
“The truth is we’ve got some weary boys at the moment, particularly our senior players,” he said.
“They play so much cricket and you think about what they’ve done… since we started the World Cup (in England last year). “They’re mentally tough guys but it’s a real challenge for us”, he added.
Talking about the three games ODI series, The first one-dayer begins in Sydney on Friday with the second two days later, before the series wraps up in Hobart on March 20.
Hope Australia’s highly tested sanitizers prove effective in keeping them safe from Coronavirus when they will continue to follow their greeting gesture of shaking hands in the upcoming ODI matches against England.
