'He could have easily taken the team back to India,' SLC secretary applauds Rahul Dravid

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) secretary Mohan de Silva was appreciative of Rahul Dravid for sticking back and continuing with the limited-overs series despite members of the Indian squad - Krunal Pandya and Yuzvendra Chahal - testing positive for Covid-19. Due to this, many of India's first-choice players too had to quarantine as they were considered close contacts.

“If he wanted, he could have easily taken the team back to India. The most encouraging aspect of the whole Pandya episode was the role of the support staff of the Indian team, led by Rahul. If he wanted, he could have easily taken the team back to India," de Silva told Cricbuzz. 

"He was very accommodating and understood the situation. He appreciated the efforts we were taking and realised that we were doing our best to protect the boys from virus dangers with all bio-secure guidelines,” de Silva added.

SLC ended up earning USD 14.5 million as a result of the series, which are certainly a huge boost to SLC's finances, says de Silva. “It was a very, very valuable tour for us. We were looking forward to it for a long time. We were very grateful to BCCI top brass – Jay Shah and Sourav Ganguly – for acceding to our request to play three additional T20Is," the SLC secretary said.

"Originally the tour was for only three ODIs. It enhanced the commercial value of the whole tour. We ended up earning almost $ 14.5 million. It is a huge boost to our finances,” he added.

While India led by Shikhar Dhawan won the ODI series 2-1, Sri Lanka bounced back in the T20Is to win the rubber by the same margin.