CSA is confident of hosting the bilateral series against India which is scheduled to start from December 17 despite the upsurge of the new mutated variant of Covid-19 named ‘Omicron’.
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The new virus has already caused the postponement of the Netherland’s tour of SA and the cancellation of Women’s ODI World Cup qualifiers tournament in Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile, India A are playing their second unofficial test against SA Bloemfontein on Tuesday. The senior team is set to fly to the African nation on December 8. The series constitutes of three T20Is, three ODIs and four test matches.
South Africa’s foreign minister has stated that a fully bio secure environment will be created when team India lands. He has also applauded the BCCI for not pulling out India A despite the covid-19 crisis in the country.
“We’ve been engaging with them (the BCCI) and they are very keen to come,” Moseki was quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
“Our government is very keen to support us and to reassure our Indian counterparts. Everything is on track.”
“India A is still in the country and there isn’t a sign of them leaving. They’re still committed and they’re expecting the tour to go ahead,” he said.
“The tour is definitely still on and there’s no reason for it not to go on unless we’re blindsided by something we’re not expecting.
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“We had prepared for two BSEs. We learnt a lot from the England tour last year. When we planned for this tour, we always planned for Gauteng and Cape Town, because of the quantity of games,” Moseki said.
“The plan is to charter a flight from Jo’burg to Cape Town. That was always the plan, even before this new variant.”
CSA underwent heavy financial losses over the last year due to the cancellation of bilateral series against England and Australia. England travelled back home abandoning the three match ODI series way back in December 2020. Australia did not arrive to play the three match test series due to the second wave of covid-19.
“We jacked up our bio-bubbles after that and the spectator matter is something that’s not in our control. Once we are sorted with the Netherlands matter, we’ll communicate further with the tour to show that there is a commitment for the tour to take place. We can play without spectators in the same way we did against Pakistan and Sri Lanka because the government knows we prepare strong bio-bubbles,” Moseki said.
“If the tour doesn’t happen, it will definitely put us in a difficult position. We will have to put some programmes on pause. We will be in a difficult position for a year or two,” he added.
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