Cricket fans were looking forward to seeing Australia tour of South Africa in March for a three match test series.
Cricket Australia announced a 19 man squad for the tour and it was expected to be a closely contested series.
However, Cricket Australia surprised everyone by suddenly announcing on Feb 2 that they had decided to cancel the South African tour due to COVID-19.
Cricket Australia had a team monitoring the situation in South Africa and the spike in COVID-19 cases forced them to make the decision to cancel the tour. The decision was taken by Cricket Australia could no longer guarantee the safety of both players and support staff.
Sky News Australia
South Africa is witnessing a second surge of the coronavirus pandemic and news reports show that there is a new mutant strain of the virus that they are battling. The numbers show that South Africans are testing positive at a 10 percent rate – which is rather alarming.
The decision made by Cricket Australia will have multiple consequences as both cricketing boards will lose a lot of money. Australia will also struggle to qualify for the World Test Championships final after embarrassing loss to India which is scheduled to take place at the end of 2021.
Graeme Smith, Director of Cricket for Cricket South Africa said they were upset and disappointed by the sudden decision made by Cricket Australia. Smith said the decision was made at the 11th hour and it upsetting because Cricket South Africa had put in a lot of effort and attention to detail to create a bio security bubble (BSB) for the tour.
Smith has reason to be upset as South Africa recently hosted Sri Lanka and is currently hosting Pakistan for a 2 match test series and a 3 match T20 series. South Africa created a bio-bubble for the Sri Lanka series and pulled it off successfully.
Smith said that Cricket Australia was made aware of the detailed arrangements and additional costs incurred to provide a safe and secure environment for the test series. The South African team had agreed to enter the bio-bubble 14 days before the first test match. The Australian team was also given permission to fast track their checkout through all airports.
Cricket South Africa claimed that they could not do anything more to convince Australia.
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