Sports come to a standstill

The escalating number of cases related to COVID 19 and the risk of spreading the virus in Sri Lanka, has prompted almost all sports governing bodies and event organisers to call off or postpone events that were scheduled to take place from this week.

Among the called off events were the England Test tour to Sri Lanka, all cricket Big Matches that were lined up from this week forward and most importantly the Dialog Schools Rugby League Championship.

The sudden, yet timely decision to call off most of this week's scheduled matches of the Dialog Schools Rugby League Championship came on Friday evening, a day after the Ministry of Education decided to shut down all schools until April 20. By the time the Sri Lanka Schools Rugby Fo o t b a l l Association ( SLSRFA) took the decision to 'temporarily' cease its most important tournament, the match between St. Anthony's College and Trinity College was played behind closed gates at Nittawela.

However, by then, the SLSRFA has already made a decision to conduct only First XV matches, cancelling all other age junior group games. The Schools Rugby officials were forced to make a vital decision with regard to the First XV competition, after a number of Principals of leading schools raised concerns of the safety of the players and others connected to the game.

Eventually, the SLSRFA had to temporarily call off the Dialog S chools Rug by Leag u e Championship, while allowing only three games to go ahead.

The St. Anthony's vs Trinity game was few hours away and by the time the SLSRFA made the decision, both teams have arrived in Nittawela. Eventually the game was played with gates closed to outsiders with Trinity claiming a 26-5 victory. In addition the SLSRFA has allowed to proceed with two games in Kandy as two school teams from Colombo had already arrived in the Hill Capital for their respective games. The games played yesterday were between Vidyartha College and St. Peter's College at Nittawela and St. Sylvester's College and D. S. Senanayake C o l l e g e at Bogambara. Both games were played behind closed gates.

An Executive Committee member of the SLSRFA told the Sunday Times, that it will observe the progress and capability of the spread and management of COVID 19 in Sri Lanka during the next week, before making a final decision.

"We are concerned about the current situation in the country. The duration of one week is just a temporary observation period, and we may have to at least give a minimum of two weeks or more to see the possibility of restarting the schools league competition. The best decision for now is to follow the guidelines issued by the government, because schoolchildren are involved in our games," he stated.

In addition a number of school cricket Big Matches were either called off or postponed after the organisers feared to take the risk of possible transmission of the pandemic virus that could generate from a large gathering. With that backdrop three Big Matches -- 103rd encounter between St. Anthony's and Trinity in Asgiriya and the 70th encounter between St. Sebastian's and Prince of Wales in Moratuwa were postponed by the respective organising committees.

The 46th Limited Overs encounter between Ananda and Nalanda, and other Limited Overs encounters of D. S. Senanayake vs Mahanama, the 13th T20 encounter between Isipathana and Thurstan were also postponed.

The 114th annual encounter between Dharmaraja and Kingswood, that was scheduled for next weekend at Pallekele, too was postponed by the organisers.

However, the 120th encounter between St. Thomas' Matara and St. Servatius Matara, which is scheduled for March 20, 21 and 22 at the Uyanwatta Stadium is yet to make a decision, as one of the schools is believed to be on firm ground that the match should go ahead as planned, while the other school is fully reluctant to take any risk.

The 141st Battle of the Blues encounter between Royal and S. Thomas' went ahead at the SSC, as the game had already completed a day when schools throughout the island were shut down. However the Limited Overs encounter between the two schools, has been postponed.

Meanwhile the Athletic Association of Sri Lanka issued a circular on March 13, stating that it has decided to cancel all trial events, fitness tests and other events 'due to the prevailing situation in the country'. This includes the selection trials for the cancelled Asian Junior Athletics Championship, the Olympic Games 2020 and the fitness test for the junior national pool.

The biggest yet, timely shocker came on Friday evening when the warm-up match between the visiting England team and the Sri Lanka Cricket XI was abandoned soon after tea at the P. Sara Oval, minutes after the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) stated that the Test Series between Sri Lanka and England will be postponed.

"Due to the COVID 19 pandemic worsening globally, and after discussions with Sri Lanka Cricket, we have today made the decision to return our players to the UK and postpone the forthcoming Test series between Sri Lanka and England. At this time, the physical and mental wellbeing of our players and support teams is paramount. We will now look to bring them home to their families as soon as possible. These are completely unprecedented times, and decisions like this go beyond cricket. We would like to thank our colleagues at Sri Lanka Cricket for their outstanding support and assistance throughout this situation. We look forward to returning to Sri Lanka in the very near future to fulfil this important Test series," ECB, issuing a statement, said.

The proposed First Class match between defending English champions, Essex and the Marylebone Cricket Club ( MCC), led by Kumar Sangakkara, to be played at the Galle International Stadium from March 24, was cancelled. In addition Sri Lanka's scheduled World Cup Qualifier football games, too were cancelled until further notice by the Asian Football Confederation.

The ongoing One Day International series between Australia and New Zealand and India and South Africa, were called off with games to follow. Both series' will be rescheduled after observing the development.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India has put off the scheduled kick off of the Indian Premier League until April 15, and by yesterday the Indian Board said that it may take a longer time to see the possibility of rescheduling the tournament. FIA, the global governing body for motorsports, stated that it would wait until May to flag off the Formula 1 season for 2020.

The current spread of the COVID 19 pandemic, is expected to reach a peak by mid April and experts have predicted that serious consequences could follow if the virus is not managed properly. The World Indoor Athletic Championship, which was scheduled to be held during March 13 and 16, 2020 in Nanjing, becomes the first sporting event to be rescheduled by the organisers, who announced that the event would now take place during the same dates, at the same venue, but in 2021.