Doubts about a timely start of the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) grew further as at least one member of the STAR production crew, who was in the first batch to leave India for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday, tested positive for coronavirus, forcing the official broadcaster to postpone their flights.

The 13th edition of IPL, which is scheduled to start on September 19, has already been jolted with 13 personnel, including at least two players of the Chennai Super Kings, testing positive and Suresh Raina, a permanent fixture of the Chennai-based franchise, returning to India after some disagreement with the CSK managemIndians are expected to form the largest chunk of different departments of the STAR production team, and the first batch was scheduled to leave from Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai on Sunday, multiple sources told IANS. But STAR India on Sunday asked all of them to wait till it issues the next advice.

"STAR had asked the first lot of Indian crew members to reach the UAE from India on August 31, after reports of their Covid-19 tests, which were hurriedly done on Saturday on receiving instructions from the broadcaster. But one of them has tested positive and on getting this news the broadcaster immediately sent another instruction to all the personnel to defer their August 31 Emirates flight to the UAE," a reliable BCCI-IPL source told IANS.

Earlier, the production team members were to reach the UAE and straightaway go into quarantine. But now, not only has their departure been postponed but their quarantine period may also be longer once they reach the UAE.