Tim Paine, Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins of Australia are seen leaving the field
Cricket Australia on Tuesday announced the postponement of Australia's scheduled tour of South Africa owing to a second wave of coronavirus.
The Australian squad was slated to fly out for the three-match Test series later this month, but CA’s interim chief executive Nick Hockley reckons that the tour poses “unacceptable” risk.
“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,” Hockley said in a statement.
“We acknowledge the significant amount of work by CSA in planning for the tour, during which we made it clear that CA 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.”
Australia still stands a chance of reaching the World Test Championship final if they beat South Africa. In a bid to go past second-placed New Zealand, who have no more series to play, they will have to amass 93 more points from the three-game series, implying a win by a margin of at least 2-1.
