Agencies, July 27: Krunal Pandya has tested positive for Covid-19, forcing the second T20I between Sri Lanka and India, scheduled for Tuesday evening, to be pushed back by a day.

Pandya's positive test result came not too long before the scheduled start of play - 8 pm local time - and eight other members of the Indian contingent have so far been identified as Pandya's close contacts and been asked to isolate in their hotel rooms.

Not long after the news broke, a BCCI press statement confirmed that "the entire contingent is undergoing RT-PCR tests today to ascertain any further outbreak in the squad". The statement also said that Pandya's case was identified "following the Rapid Antigen Tests conducted ahead of the match on Tuesday morning."

There have been no reports of positive results among the Sri Lankans, who are scheduled to be tested next on Wednesday morning.
As things stand, the second and third T20Is will now be played back-to-back on Wednesday and Thursday. Though the series will end on schedule despite the postponement, the Indian team's return home, slotted for Thursday, is likely to be delayed.

The development is also set to impact plans for Prithvi Shaw and Suryakumar Yadav, the two batters who were selected to join the Indian Test squad in England. Shaw and Yadav were scheduled to travel to England at the end of the tour of Sri Lanka.

India, who earlier won the three-match ODI series 2-1, despite being in Sri Lanka with a squad missing many first-choice players, who are in England to play a five-Test series in August-September, are 1-0 up in the T20I series following their 38-run win in the first fixture.