Reports suggest the BCCI will wait and watch before deciding on the senior men’s team’s scheduled tour of South Africa
South Africa has been added to the UK’s red list and travel restrictions from Italy, Germany and Singapore are in place, with other countries expected to follow, and while there is no official update yet, South Africa’s home international schedule – for men and women – could well be disrupted in a big way.
Reuters reported that the Indian government has issued an advisory to all the states in the country to rigorously test and screen international travellers from South Africa and other countries that are considered at-risk. The report quoted the Indian health ministry as saying that the new variant, identified as B.1.1.529, had “serious public health implications”.
An unnamed BCCI official, meanwhile, was quoted by PTI as saying, “Look, till we get a detailed picture of the ground situation from Cricket South Africa, we will not be able to tell our next step. As per the current plan, the Indian team is supposed to leave either on December 8 or 9 just after the New Zealand series gets over in Mumbai.”
The official indicated that even though players will be sent on a charter flight from Mumbai to Johannesburg, there is a possibility of putting them through three-four days of hard quarantine upon reaching given the changed circumstances.
An official travelling with the ‘A’ team was also quoted by PTI as saying, “After the outbreak, a medical team from Cricket South Africa had a meeting with our representatives over here. We were told that there is nothing to worry since the spike in cases is far away from Bloemfontein where we would be playing our next match too.”
The new Covid-19 variant has more mutations but it is not known whether it causes more severe illnesses than the Delta variant. South African scientists will meet with the World Health Organisation in an effort to find out more. Cases in South Africa have risen three-fold in the last week.
Top-level cricket in South Africa was disrupted in a big way because of the pandemic last year too: England abandoned a tour without playing the ODI series after positive cases in the South African camp and Australia did not travel to play a three-match Test series, costing CSA millions.
*1207hrs GMT: The story was updated after a confirmation of the cancellation of the tour
Firdose Moonda is ESPNcricinfo’s South Africa correspondent