Virus pushes English cricket season back until July
25 April, 2020
Cricket chiefs announced Friday that no professional cricket will be played in England and Wales until July at the initial as the coronavirus pandemic wreaked fresh havoc on the international sporting calendar
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said attempts would be designed to reschedule international fixtures in the time from July before end of September, including the West Indies Test tour of England.
Global cricket reaches a standstill consequently of COVID-19, with stark warnings issued over the damaging monetary fallout.
ECB ceo Tom Harrison said the plan was to reschedule international matches as late as possible in the English season to provide the best potential for play.
The West Indies tour, including three Tests, had been due to get started on on June 4.
A women's series between England and India, comprising one-day internationals and Twenty20 matches, was scheduled for later in that month.
Before that the county championship have been due to begin fourteen days ago, on April 12.
"There will be no cricket unless it's safe to play," said Harrison. "Our schedule is only going to just do it if government guidance permits.
"Our biggest challenge, along with other sports, is how exactly we could seek to implement a bio-secure solution that provides optimum safety and security for all concerned."
Beneath the plans, nine rounds of fixtures will be lost in the four-day county championship season, but time slots for red-ball and white-ball cricket will remain in a revised schedule.
The lucrative Twenty20 Blast will be pushed as late in the growing season as possible. All matches previously scheduled in June will be moved later in the season.
- Hundred under threat? -
The ECB will discuss the inaugural Hundred competition in a few days, carrying out a request to dedicate a further session to the competition
The inaugural edition of the tournament, a fresh 100-balls-per-side format to be played by eight franchises instead of English cricket's established 18 first-class counties, is intended to begin in July.
ECB officials have long insisted it will attract a fresh audience, considered essential to safeguarding cricket's future in its homeland.
The ECB late last month announced £61 million ($75 million) aid package in response to the "once in a generation" challenge of the coronavirus outbreak.
The financial problems facing the English game were underlined on Thursday when Middlesex announced that they had furloughed all players & most support staff until further notice in order to benefit from the British government's coronavirus job retention scheme.
Problems for the English game are reflected around the world.
South Africa's tour of Sri Lanka set for June was officially called off earlier this week without new date set and the world's richest cricket tournament, the Indian Premier League, has been indefinitely suspended.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said the Twenty20 competition, already pushed back from its original start date of March 29 would only start when it had been safe to do so.
Cricket Australia's leader leader Kevin Roberts warned this week that the organisation could lose vast sums of dollars if this year's Test tour by India were scrapped.
But global cricket chiefs said these were still making plans because of this year's Twenty20 World Cup in Australia, due to start in October.
Source: