Australia’s tour of South Africa postponed due to ‘unacceptable’ COVID-19 risk

Melbourne [Australia], February 2 (ANI): Australia’s three-match Test tour of South Africa has been postponed due to an ‘unacceptable’ coronavirus risk, Cricket Australia confirmed on Tuesday.
The Tim Paine-led Australia squad was scheduled to tour South Africa later this month.
CA’s interim chief executive Nick Hockley said traveling from Australia to South Africa at this current time will have an unacceptable level of health and safety risk to the visiting players.
“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,” he further said.
“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,” Hockley added.
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.
Tanveer Sangha, the 19-year-old legspinner, who has been in fine form in the ongoing Big Bash League (BBL) for Sydney Thunder, was also picked in the T20Is squad.
T20I squad Aaron Finch (capt), Matthew Wade (vc), Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, Riley Meredith, Josh Philippe, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Daniel Sams, Tanveer Sangha, D’Arcy Short, Marcus Stoinis, Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa. (ANI)