SA women’s cricket tour postponed

The Proteas Women’s tour to the West Indies, originally scheduled to take place in June, has been postponed.

Dane van Niekerk’s team were scheduled to take on their West Indian counterparts in a five-match series prior to the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier in July.

However, following South Africa’s automatic qualification (having finished third in the ICC Women’s Championship), and in response to the ICC’s announcement on Tuesday of the postponement of the Women’s Qualifier Tournament due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Cricket West Indies (CWI) and Cricket South Africa (CSA) have agreed to postpone the tour.

Additionally, CWI and CSA have also agreed that due to the uncertainty of international travel, quarantine requirements and the health and safety of both teams, the SA men’s ‘A’ team’s upcoming tour should also be postponed.

Though he admitted it was frustrating that the tours had to be postponed, CSA acting chief executive Jacques Faul said player safety was paramount.

“It is a frustrating state of affairs in which cricket finds itself around the world but there are more important issues that have to be confronted and the wellbeing of our players and support staff must always come first,” Faul said.

“Both our men’s and women’s national teams are keen to get back on the playing field as soon as possible. They want to build on their recent good results, with the men achieving a 3-0 victory over Australia in their recent ODI series and our Proteas Women coming so close to reaching the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup final.”

According to CWI chief executive Johnny Grave, new dates for both tours would be discussed in the future.

“We are continuing our discussions with CSA on the feasibility of hosting the men’s tour later this summer and will have further discussions in due course on new dates for the women’s and ‘A’ team tours,” Grave said.