Cricket's COVID-19 crisis! England tour of South Africa has been called off.

An hour before the official kick-off time of the 1st ODI match between South Africa and England, fans left disheartened with the decision of the match being postponed to the next day. The decision was taken after a COVID test of the South African player came back positive. The game was given a green light after the second set of COVID tests of all the players came negative. But this time 2 staff members of the hotel where both the teams were staying tested positive. This finally made the ODI to be called off. CSA tried to host the second and third ODIs on back to back days – on Tuesday and Wednesday – before England left home on Thursday. But taking the mental and physical health of the players into consideration the current tour has been called off with a postponement to a later undecided date.

On the other side of the globe, 10 players from the 54 members of the visiting team Pakistan tested positive for COVID. All these players were tested negative while leaving Pakistan. This forced the New Zealand health ministry to send an ultimatum to the Pakistan team. This raised a question of the reliability of the Bio-secure bubble in which players are advised to stay.

With the recent rise of the second wave across the globe, it puts more pressure on organizers for successfully conducting cricket matches in all formats. The host countries started putting stringent bio-secure bubble restrictions on the players. The 2020 /21 series between India and Australia for still going without any concerns, while the other two ongoing tournaments hit a bad note with the COVID-19 as players and staff started testing positive.

This clearly demands scrutiny. Are the players are taught all the rules? Are they taking them seriously? Are the teams on the same page for both the countries playing against each other? While the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) conducted two tests before travelling to England earlier including an antibody test, this time they conducted a single test. The players breaching the bio-secure bubbles is making this even more difficult.

Until a vaccine comes along and until it is approved and available across all the cricket-playing nations, it is likely that the series in near future in early 2021 might also be affected. New Zealand’s tour of Australia which was scheduled in Jan and Feb has already been postponed. Future tours such as Sri Lanka’s tour of South Africa and Australia’s tour of New Zealand and are still a go but these tours might also be affected causing these boards to lose huge sums of money. The postponement of the ODI leg of the tour of England to South Africa has already made a dent of US$2 Million in broadcast revenue to CSA’s pocket and any further cancellation would incur serious revenue losses.
Where clubs and teams across the world from every sport are struggling with the government bodies to bring the spectators on the grounds, more than 17000 crowds turned up to watch the matches between Australia and India. It is important to continue this confidence of bringing the public back to the grounds to generate the revenue boards were losing during the absence of the cricket.

The simple math states a loss of $100-110 million here and there with every cancellation of an international series. Maybe the BCCI and the ECB can afford it but the other clubs will lose their primary source of money. The severity can be judged with the absence of Virat Kohli from the test series. His paternity leave approval created a panic between the broadcasters and cricket Australia. So, how massive the loss can be if there if cricket stops again? It is difficult to say. Maybe ICC can learn from the National Basketball Association (NBA) who put protocol on players and sent a memo to the teams to tell them about the hefty-sanctions.