Published 10:07 IST, March 15th 2020
Cricket West Indies suspends all tournaments amid Coronavirus scare
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 against coronavirus
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As Coronavirus continues to grip the sports fraternity, the 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 the spread of the virus. The decision comes after the recommendation of CWI's Medical Advisory Committee (MAC).
Israel Dowlat CWI Chief Medical Officer in a statement asserted health to be paramount and further stated that proactive policy steps are being taken to decrease the growing risk of contamination.
"The health and safety of our players, officials and staff, are of paramount importance to CWI and we have advised the Board of Directors to take proactive policy steps to decrease the growing risk of contamination and spread of the virus," said Israel Dowlat.
The tournaments affected after CWI's decision are the Regional Under 15s Boys CHampionship, Regional Under 19s Girls Championship and Final two rounds of the 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. The ongoing gathering of even small groups of spectators, cricketers and match officials could pose a risk to some persons of contracting the virus and being stranded in quarantine in a non-resident country for a prolonged period," said Donovan Bennett, Chairman of the MAC.
"Clearly this pandemic is still evolving, and we will continue to monitor the situation throughout the Caribbean," he added.
Furthermore, the CWI has also advised all Local Cricket Associations and Territorial Boards to follow the advice of their respective Ministries of Health.
Coronavirus rocked the cricketing world
Here is a list of the key cricketing events affected by the virus-
-IPL 2020 was originally slated to start from March 29 but has been postponed to April 15. Additionally, an official has revealed that the league might get cancelled altogether this year if it misses the April 20 deadline.
-India's remaining two ODIs against South Africa in Lucknow and Kolkata were also called off a day after the BCCI said that the matches will be held in closed doors.
-Earlier today, Australia's Chappell-Hadlee one-day series against New Zealand has been abandoned, with the Black Caps team rushing home due to Coronavirus precautions.
-Lastly, England's tour of Sri Lanka has also been postponed due to the pandemic. England was in Sri Lanka for a two-Test series starting March 19.
Meanwhile, the 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- the novel Coronavirus has affected nearly 118 countries in the world. Presently, there are over 1,24,518 confirmed cases of COVID-19 which has led to the death of over 5,000 people.
10:07 IST, March 15th 2020