CSA confident Australia tour will go ahead

Cricket South Africa (CSA) is confident the scheduled Australia tour to the country will take place despite the increasing number of Covid-19 cases.

Australia are scheduled to travel to South Africa via chartered flight for a three-match Test series in March and April.

The huge number of Covid-19 infections in South Africa has resulted in rumours that the tour could be switched to Perth, while others have suggested the tour could be called off considering the controversy after the CSA’s bio-bubble integrity was breached during the England tour in November and December.

However, during a virtual media briefing on Thursday, CSA interim board chairperson and retired Justice Zak Yacoob voiced his confidence that the tour will go ahead.

“I had a chat with the chair of Cricket Australia [Earl Eddings] about a week ago and we agreed that the tour is going to go ahead‚” Yacoob said, as quoted by TimesLIVE.

“We are going to ensure that our facilities are as good as possible‚ and as good as necessary. We agreed that we learn everyday‚ but that is not on the basis we did anything that was wrong when England were here.”

Sri Lanka tour completed without a hitch

The ODI portion of the series against England was cancelled after two hotel workers in the bio-secure environment in Cape Town, where both teams stayed, tested positive.

And although two members of the England touring party also tested positive, those were later confirmed as false positives.

Nevertheless, South Africa hosted a two-match Test series against Sri Lanka last month – in Pretoria and Johannesburg, which was concluded without reported incidents.

“So far there is no doubt between the chair of Cricket Australia and myself that the tour will go ahead‚” he added.

“But we have agreed also that the coronavirus is changing and we cannot predict what will happen.

“So if things suddenly go down for the worse and our experts and other experts say we can’t do it‚ we won’t be able to.”

CSA acting CEO Pholetsi Moseki said the organisation will release finalised details of the Australian tour “in a week or so”.

South Africa have reported in excess of 10,000 new cases every day for the last week.

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