The franchises considered the FOB devices purchased by the BCCI from a Chennai company to monitor the movement of individual players within the Bio-Bubble to be defective and labeled “substandard."
The FOB, a GPS-based tracking device, is a wristband that must be worn by anyone in the IPL ecosystem. The software is Bluetooth-enabled, and it gathers data from the device to monitor the wearer's every step, which can be received and accessed through a smartphone application called “bio-bubble."
Several members have criticized the GPS system after it was discovered to monitor nothing at all.“A franchise travelled from one city to another. It asked for the movement data. The company sent the data of the city where the franchise was based before the trip. The FOB did not even register that the franchise had travelled to another city.”
This comes on the heels of the BCCI's serious problems as a result of several Covid-19 cases being identified within the IPL bio-bubble, which was thought to be the safest of all.
Notably, two players, Sandeep Warrier and Varun Chakravarthy, tested positive for the virus, forcing the rescheduling of Monday's match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore, who were not "eager to take the field" after learning of positive cases in the opposing camp.