Cricket Australia to go ahead with third test despite COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney

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COVID-19
Image Courtesy: Reuters/PTI

Global pandemic novel COVID-19 has brought the entire world into a standstill. While the normal work and sporting events have started taking place with proper guidelines, a fresh COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney has left everyone in a split and the Cricket Australia on high alert as well.

India
Image Courtesy: Reuters/PTI

This has become serious as Team India has travelled to Australia for a full-fledged series. While the limited-overs series has ended with a mixed result, Test series has just started with the day-night affair in Adelaide.

Meanwhile, the positive cases have touched 28 on Friday in northern beaches, which has forced former Australia pace bowler, Brett Lee, to return home. Although he didn’t show any symptoms yet, he has returned home as a precautionary measure. Along with him, two other Sydney-based broadcasters have returned home too amid this crunch time.

On the other hand, three members of the SEN commentary team have also left Adelaide. Notably, they were covering the first Test between India and Australia.

This incident has become a matter of tension now as the third Test between India and Australia is scheduled to take place in Sydney and keeping the current situation in mind, it is tough to take a call now. But Cricket Australia has been keeping an eye on the situations as well.

“There’s been lots of discussion and meetings of our medical experts, but this is the reason why throughout the summer we’ve had our players in bubbles in the hub,” CA’s interim chief executive Nick Hockley told SEN Radio. “We’re monitoring the situation; we’re not panicking at all, staying calm… … it’s really watch, wait and see and I think the governments around the country have handled the pandemic so well, so we’ll watch, learn and stay in touch.”

However, while speaking on whether the SCG could host the Test, Hockley assured that the game will be played there only and gave the explanation as well. He said that they have the hubs in place for this. He even shared that there are ways to deal with all the protocols with any player – be it WBBL players, BBL players, the BCCI or Australian squads as well.

He further added that the medical experts have been working hard in Sydney to keep things under control. And, they are in good touch with health authorities around the country which has been helping them to keep a close eye on the situation as well.

“We started out thinking how to play the full series as safely as possible, and we’ll take the same approach over the coming days and weeks. We’ve got contingency plans around a whole range of different options, and we’ve had to be agile all the way through. We were encouraged that it was 17 cases yesterday and ten today, and we’ll see how that plays out over the next 72 hours,” he concluded.

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