Cricket Australia have announced that the Australian test team has had to pull out of the tour of South Africa, scheduled to take place in March.
The decision is down to concerns with the South African variant of Covid-19, with Cricket Australia claiming it had no choice but to pull out.
This will be a massive blow to CSA, who are already struggling financially. They also have had to deal with the blow of England abandoning a white ball tour a few weeks back.
Australia pull out of South Africa Tour
“Due to the public-health situation in South Africa, which includes a second wave and new variant of the virus, and 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,”
Nick Hockley, Cricket Australia interim CEO.
Three test matches were scheduled to be played between 3rd and 25th March, although the dates weren’t finalised.
As things stand, this is just a postponement of the tour.
The tour would have provided an interesting examination of the Australian test team.
They’ve just suffered a humiliating defeat at home to India’s reserve side. And there have been rumblings of discontent in the side, which may well have been exposed on a tour.
