Cricket Australia scraps Test tour of South Africa over Coronavirus fears

Australia’s Test tour of South Africa has been postponed due to concerns over the second wave of COVID-19 in the country.

The team will not now travel to contest the three-Test series which was due to start on 3rd March, with Cricket Australia interim Chief Executive Nick Hockley advising that said travelling to South Africa posed “unacceptable” risk to the touring party.

In a statement released yesterday evening, Hockley advised “following extensive due diligence with medical experts, it has become clear that traveling from Australia to South Africa at this current time poses an unacceptable level of health and safety risk to our players, support staff and the community.

“We acknowledge the significant amount of work by Cricket South Africa (CSA) in planning for the tour, during which we made it clear that Cricket Australia was prepared to take on additional cost and effort to make the series happen.

“This decision has not been made lightly and we are extremely disappointed, especially given the importance of continuing international cricket at this time, our valued relationship with CSA, and our aspirations to compete in the inaugural ICC World Test Championship.”

It is the second major tour of South Africa to be cancelled in recent months after England pulled out of their trip midway through a one-day series.

Reports suggest that Cricket Australia offered to play series in Australia, but the proposal was rejected by CSA.

Amid fears over rising Coronavirus infections and a new variant of COVID-19, potentially impacting the planned British and Irish Lions’ rugby tour to South Africa during the Southern Hemisphere winter, Rugby Australia has made a proposal to host the series.

The tour is currently scheduled to run from 3rd July to 7th August, culminating with three Test matches on 24th and 31st July and 7th August.

The Lions and SA Rugby are understood to be discussing three scenarios - staging the tour in South Africa as planned but behind closed doors, postponing the series by a year, or potentially moving the series to be played in the UK and Ireland.

However, Rugby Australia’s proposal to host the tour would potentially allow fans to attend games.