West Indies coach Phil Simmons apologises for 'embarrassing' Covid-19 breaches, players clear final tests

West Indies coach Phil Simmons has apologised to New Zealand health officials after several of his players breached Covid-19 safety protocols and said his team would be scrabbling to get up to speed having had their training privileges removed.

The West Indies team had been allowed to train in small groups while undergoing a mandatory 14-day isolation, but the Ministry of Health revoked that privilege on Wednesday after they discovered players had shared food and socialised together.

It was confirmed on Thursday after that all members of the West Indies squad had cleared their third batch of Covid-19 tests which were conducted on day12 of their stay and they are schedule to leave isolation on Friday.

"I have to apologise to the New Zealand public and the government who have allowed us to come here," Simmons told Newshub. "It's embarrassing from our point of view."

Simmons added the players would be subject to internal sanctions.

They had lost a total of four days training because of the breaches. They have two warm-up games in Queenstown from November 20 and Simmons said they might be a little slow to get their conditioning and match fitness back.

"We were just getting to the levels that we would normally start at, but coming from no cricket, we had to start slower," he said. "Hopefully everybody tests negative and then we can move to Queenstown and ramp it up as quickly as possible because later in the week we have a training game."

Meanwhile, the West Indies and New Zealand players who had been at the IPL arrived in Auckland on Thursday and passed their initial health checks. They will board a charter flight to Christchurch ahead of beginning their 14-day period of managed isolation

The first of three T20Is is in Auckland on November 27 before the two-test series starts on December 3.