Australia’s Tour Of South Africa Postponed Due To ‘Unacceptable’ COVID-19 Risk

Mumbai: Australia’s three-match Test tour has been postponed due to the ‘unacceptable’ coronavirus virus, Cricket Australia confirmed on Tuesday. The Australian team led by Tim Paine was scheduled to tour South Africa this month.

CA’s interim chief executive Nick Hockley said that players currently moving from Australia to South Africa would have an unacceptable level of health and safety risk.

Hockley said in a statement, “After extensive diligence with medical experts, it has become clear that travelling from Australia to South Africa at this time is an unacceptable level of health and safety risk for our players, support staff and the community.”

He continued, “We acknowledge the significant amount of work the CSA has done in planning for the tour, during which we made it clear that CA was ready for the extra cost and effort to build the chain.”

“This decision has not been taken lightly and we are deeply disappointed, especially given the importance of ongoing international cricket, our valuable relationship with CSA and our aspirations to compete in the inaugural ICC World Test Championship,” said Hockley.

Last week, Matthew Wade was left out of Australia’s Test squad for the South Africa tour while Tim Paine received strong support to continue as captain. Wade will instead tour New Zealand for the T20I series.

The Australian T20I squad will be captained by Aaron Finch and coached by Andrew McDonald.

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