Piyush Chawla's father dies of post-Covid-19 complications

Piyush Chawla's father, Pramod Kumar Chawla, died on Monday. He had recovered from a bout of Covid-19, but as Chawla, the former India legspinner, said in a post on Instagram, Pramod had been suffering from post-Covid-19 complications.

Families of more than one cricketer have been affected by Covid-19. While MS Dhoni's parents had to be hospitalised during the course of the IPL, and Veda Krishnamurthy has lost both her mother and sister to the virus, Chetan Sakariya, one of the success stories of IPL 2021, lost his father on Sunday.

The 2021 IPL was called off on May 4 after a spate of positive Covid-19 cases in a number of franchises. Since then, the teams have disbanded, with most overseas cricketers having headed back home. Among the ones still in India are Mike Hussey, the Super Kings batting coach, and Tim Seifert, the Knight Riders wicketkeeper-batter, who are both being treated for Covid-19 in a hospital in Chennai.

Legspinner Chawla, 32, is a veteran of the game, having started his first-class and List A career in 2005, and has played three Tests, 25 ODIs and seven T20Is over the years, and was part of the trophy-winning India squads at both the 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2011 ODI World Cup. He was part of the Mumbai Indians squad at IPL 2021, which was postponed indefinitely last week because of the worsening Covid-19 situation, but didn't get into the first XI in any of their matches. The Mumbai Indians are Chawla's fourth IPL team - he has earlier represented the Knight Riders, the Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings), and the Chennai Super Kings, and is the joint-third-highest wicket-taker in the competition overall: his 156 wickets are only behind Lasith Malinga (170) and Amit Mishra (166), and the same as Dwayne Bravo's haul.