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- Proteas team doctor Shuaib Manjra is confident that the Proteas adhered to safety protocols during England’s series of limited overs.
- The ODI leg of the tour was canceled after a series of coronavirus cases within the Vineyard Hotel biobubble.
- England will return home on Thursday in good health, the ECB confirmed.
They held on for as long as they could, but in the end sanity prevailed and Cricket South Africa (CSA) he was forced to postpone his ODI series against England this week.
With all the sport in the country currently taking place behind closed doors, there was obviously no revenue in the door to capitalize on the series, but losing the broadcast and advertising revenue that would have come with those three matches is a massive hit. for CSA, which could have used the injection of funds after what has been an enormously challenging period.
For CSA this year, it has rained more than it has rained, and the public criticism that has followed the postponement of the series has been another obstacle in the way for an organization that has been on the ropes for much of 2020.
The two limited series against England were limited to the Western Cape and all matches took place in Cape Town or Paarl, but confirmed cases of coronavirus within the Vineyard Hotel bio-bubble last week meant the ODI series never took off.
Before the first ODI, a Proteas player within the group tested positive for Covid-19 and the match was delayed for two days.
This was the third Proteas player to test positive for the virus since the hosts named their squad before the series, although the first two were infected before the group entered the biobubble. One player was isolated in a separate Cape Town hotel before entering the bubble, while the other was only revealed as a positive case after entry.
It is not known how the third player was infected.
It was later revealed that two Vineyard Hotel employees had also tested positive, while England had also returned two unconfirmed positives.
Sunday’s ODI was also scrapped, and on Monday afternoon it was all over when the series was canceled and England began planning to return home.
As is often the case with developments of this nature, people are looking for someone to blame, and as a result CSA has shot up.
Why have other countries been able to host cricket series and tournaments without coronavirus problems, while South Africa has not?
One theory is that the latest penetration of the coronavirus into the biobubble may come from the English squad that used an off-limits network area in Newlands, situated next to the ongoing construction site on site, for a training session.
That situation is currently being investigated by CSA, but on Tuesday the English Cricket Board (ECB) claimed that, after consulting with independent specialists, the two members of their travel group who had returned unconfirmed positives were not actually infected.
As a result, England will leave the country together on Thursday.
The England team, which had totally negative results after arriving in South Africa at the end of November, also played golf during their stay in South Africa and that too has become a topic of conversation.
According to the Proteas team doctor, Shuaib Manjra, who was the man in charge of creating and facilitating the biologically safe environment (BSE), this came with a low risk of infection and the desire of the English to play golf while in the country had communicated before they did. arrived.
“It should be noted that this did not come up on us. It was an agreement before England came here that we would allow a safe bridge across spaces from the BSE to what we would consider safe spaces like golf courses,” Manjra said. Sport24 on Tuesday.
“We designated specific fields where they could play and they were largely private fields, not public fields. The risk of transmission was low, and we were very clear that they did not use clubhouses or go to the intermediate house professional store.
“We used authorized vehicles that did not stop on the road.
“We had established it and we knew that England was going to play bridge golf so it was not a surprise to us. It was part of the plan and protocols.
“I’m not saying there was zero risk, but we managed that risk appropriately. Like everything in BSE, there is never a zero risk approach, but a minimal risk approach.”
Sport24 understands that Steenberg Golf Club was one of the courses that had been stipulated as a course that the English could visit before arriving.
The fact of the matter, Manjra says, is that trying to identify exactly how the virus got into the Vineyard Hotel’s biobubble last week was a largely futile exercise.
“You can pick it up from anywhere and trying to figure out where it comes from would be extremely difficult,” he said.
“Go back five to seven days before the person tested positive and try to figure out their movements and behaviors and identify any potential sources.
“The member of our team (the third case of coronavirus within the Proteas group) had been incredibly disciplined and had not had contact with anyone outside the BSE.”
Manjra declined to comment on the suggestion that the virus had entered the bubble through Newlands’ network session in England, but was confident that Proteas players, staff and hotel employees had played their part to keep the bubble as sanitized and safe as possible.
“Obviously, we don’t have full control over the ground. We got there and there are others coming in before us to install it. There is an element of confidence that the place will be cleaned up,” he said.
“There is an element of trust in the various islands that we have created and all of them came very well to the party.
“Trying to do some kind of root cause analysis and figure out exactly where it came from is a futile exercise at the moment because we haven’t been able to do it.
“From our team and the hotel, we are pretty sure that there has been no violation of the EEB environment.”
There is little time to stop and attention must immediately shift to a two-test series against Sri Lanka.
The Boxing Day test will take place in Centurion, while on January 3 the second test will begin at the Wanderers.
Manjra confirmed that Sri Lanka had raised concerns about recent events, but they were still on their way to reach the country on December 19, just days before the first test.
Manjra further confirmed that a similar biobubble would be created in Gauteng, but that even stricter security protocols would need to be followed.
