Pakistan Super League cricket suspended over COVID-19 cases

KARACHI: The Pakistan Super League (PSL) was suspended on Thursday ater seven players tested positive for coronavirus, the country’s cricket board said.

The Twenty20 competition, which started on Feb.20, was put on hold “with immediate effect”, a Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) statement said.

“The decision was made ater seven cases were reported in the competition,” the PCB said.

The PCB “will focus on the safe and secure passage of all participants, and arrange repeat PCR tests, vaccines and isolation facilities to the six participating sides”, it added.

The seven players included Australian spinner Fawad Ahmed, England’s Tom Banton and Mohammad Faizan, who represents Lahore.

Australian all-rounder Daniel Christian withdrew from the competition over fears of catching the virus and planned to fly out on Thursday.

“It’s a tough day for Pakistan cricket,” the PCB’S chief executive Wasim Khan told a press conference.

“We will try to find a window to complete the remaining matches before the end of the year.”

The coronavirus has proved yet another hurdle for the PSL, which is now in its sixth edition but was held entirely in Pakistan for just the first time last year.

Previous editions were hosted wholly or partially by the UAE over security fears following the deadly 2009 atack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore.

Last year, three play-offs and the final were cancelled ater England’s Alex Hales showed symptoms of COVID-19. The games were rescheduled to November and held behind closed doors, when Karachi Kings won the title.

BOUNDARIES‘LIMITLESS’,SAYSUSCRICKETCHIEF: US cricket chairman Paraag Marathe believes the US has the potential to become a global force in the game despite its current humble status.

The US wants to become a full member of the International cricket Council by 2030 and is hoping to launch the Major League cricket Twenty20 competition in 2022.

Marathe, who has been chairman of USA cricket since 2018, believes two key “data points” underline the huge potential for the game in America.

“You are talking about the second-largest sport in the world and being started in the number-one media market in the world,” he said.

Cricket has a long history in the US and in 1844, the first official international match was held in New York, where a US team took on Canada, but the game faded as baseball grew.

Undaunted, cricket chiefs are determined to make the game a mainstream sport in the US and last year published an ambitious blueprint. Marathe said he got an idea of how serious a player the US could become when he atended an International cricket Council (ICC) meeting in London in 2019.

“We were one of more than 100 associate or full members there and yet we were the 10,000-pound gorilla in the room,” he said in an online interview from his office in California. “Everyone was looking at us out of the corner of their eye.

“Yes, we were still a rinky-dink small shop associate member but everyone recognised the potential the US has to become a full member and a global force in the sport.” A testing ground for the potential of the sport in the United States will come with the launch of the Major League cricket T20 competition involving six franchises.

Marathe said the quick-fire Twenty20 format was ideally suited to American sporting tastes in one crucial aspect — time.