Cricket West Indies suspends all tournaments amid Coronavirus scare

As Coronavirus continues to grip sports fraternity, Cricket West Indies (CWI) has suspended all its tournaments and face to face group meetings from March 16 for a minimum of 30 days as a precautionary measure to contain spread of virus. decision comes after recommendation of CWI's Medical Advisory Committee (MAC).

Israel Dowlat CWI Chief Medical Officer in a statement asserted health to be paramount and furr stated that proactive policy steps are being taken to decrease growing risk of contamination. 

" health and safety of our players, officials and staff, are of paramount importance to CWI and we have advised Board of Directors to take proactive policy steps to decrease growing risk of contamination and spread of virus," said Israel Dowlat.

tournaments affected after CWI's decision are Regional Under 15s Boys CHampionship, Regional Under 19s Girls Championship and Final two rounds of West Indies Championship that was slated to begin from March 26.

"We are acting based on medical best practice as well as in an abundance of caution. ongoing garing of even small groups of spectators, cricketers and match officials could pose a risk to some persons of contracting virus and being stranded in quarantine in a n-resident country for a prolonged period," said Dovan Bennett, Chairman of MAC.

"Clearly this pandemic is still evolving, and we will continue to monitor situation throughout Caribbean," he added.

Furrmore, CWI has also advised all Local Cricket Associations and Territorial Boards to follow advice of ir respective Ministries of Health.

READ: IPL franchise owners vow to adhere to Health Min's directives, fight COVID-19 toger

READ: 'IPL will happen, will be truncated,' asserts BCCI chief Sourav Ganguly after GC meeting

Coronavirus rocked cricketing world

Here is a list of key cricketing events affected by virus-

-IPL 2020 was originally slated to start from March 29 but has been postponed to April 15. Additionally, an official has revealed that league might get cancelled altoger this year if it misses April 20 deadline.

-India's remaining two ODIs against South Africa in Luckw and Kolkata were also called off a day after BCCI said that matches will be held in closed doors.

-Earlier today, Australia's Chappell-Hadlee one-day series against New Zealand has been abandoned, with Black Caps team rushing home due to Coronavirus precautions.

-Lastly, England's tour of Sri Lanka has also been postponed due to pandemic. England was in Sri Lanka for a two-Test series starting March 19.

READ: BCCI chairs meeting with IPL franchise owners to discuss impact of COVID-19

READ: ACCESSED: se are 8 options given to IPL owners for 2020 tournament amid Coronavirus

Meanwhile, total number of positive cases in India has risen up to 93, with two deaths have been reported in Kalaburagi and West Delhi respectively. First detected in Wuhan in December 2019, COVID-19- vel Coronavirus has affected nearly 118 countries in world. Presently, re are over 1,24,518 confirmed cases of COVID-19 which has led to death of over 5,000 people.