Stranding fear the last straw for tour

THE nightmare prospect that a player could be stranded on their own in South Africa indefinitely was the killer blow to Australia’s cancelled Test tour.

But in the end the list of red flags was so long Australian officials couldn’t even be convinced Cricket South Africa had a definite plan to safely transport players from the airport to their accommodation upon arrival.

As first revealed on Tuesday, Cricket Australia’s medical experts refused to sign off on the tour, with the catalyst being a genuine fear over how they would be able to repatriate a player or staff member if they became infected with COVID.

Medical chiefs deemed that even in a bubble, the risk of a player contracting the virus was “more than possible” in a country returning 10 per cent positive results with its coronavirus testing.

In that scenario, it’s understood the series would have been immediately abandoned and the non-infected Australians rushed home on a charter flight. But any Australian star who returned a positive test would have been forced to stay behind and essentially fight for themselves in a country where there are no direct commercial flights home to Australia.

It could have then taken weeks to get anyone left behind out of South Africa and through a connecting port in the UAE, before they were back to Australian quarantine.

South African cricket boss and former Test great Graeme Smith blasted CA for leaving them at the altar just a month out from the first Test, but interim CA chief Nick Hockley made it clear Australia did offer a lifeline to play the series in Perth instead, only to have that refused by the Proteas.

It’s understood England had similar concerns a couple of months ago and fled South Africa mid-series.