Proteas tour to Sri Lanka off, ICC call conference
The Proteas’ limited-overs tour to Sri Lanka in June has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Cricket SA and Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) on Monday jointly announced the postponement of the tour scheduled to take place in the first half of June.
The tour was to include three ODIs and three T20s.
The one-day internationals leg of the tour would have been the first for the Proteas in the ICC’s new one-day league.
“It is very sad that we have been forced to take this step and we will reschedule the tour as soon as cricket returns to a sense of normality and our international fixture list allows‚” said acting Cricket SA CEO Jacques Faul.
“Our Proteas would not have been able to prepare properly taking our own lockdown situation into account and‚ more importantly‚ health considerations for our players‚ which are always paramount‚ were the over-riding factor‚” he said.
“It would have been a particularly important tour for us with the three ODIs counting for the new ICC one-day league and the T20 programme being part of our preparation for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup scheduled for Australia later this year.
“It is frustrating for the players who want to build on the good form they showed at the back end of our home summer against Australia‚” Faul said.
SA are scheduled to travel to the West Indies in July and there is the T20 World Cup in Australia in October and November which remains in the balance.
“We have a teleconference with the ICC on Thursday. There is a lot of uncertainty at this stage. Factors that will influence this big time include international travel.
“When is the ban on international travel going to come to an end? I guess you can play behind closed doors but you still have to travel and get visas. There will be more clarity next week. There is a lot of uncertainty and we will report back on it‚” Faul said.
Cricket chiefs will discuss the future of some of the sport’s biggest events as they try to find a way through the disruption caused by the pandemic. Thursday’s conference call will bring together the CEOs of the ICC’s 12 full member nations and three associate representatives.
The start of the English season and the lucrative Twenty20 Indian Premier League have both been delayed by Covid-19.
England and Wales Cricket Board CEO Tom Harrison has warned an entire season without cricket would cost the game there more than £300m while Cricket Australia have laid off staff.
The virus could also threaten this year’s T20 World Cup in Australia, meant to start on October 18.
ICC CEO Manu Sawhney said the meeting would be the first step in a “collective process”. “We need to share knowledge and start to build a deep understanding of what it will take to resume international cricket,” he said.
“Countries will start to reopen at different stages and in different ways and we will need to respect that and have a holistic view of this to enable us to take well-informed decisions that mitigate the various risks as much as possible.”
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