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England captain Eoin Morgan is congratulated by his South African counterpart Quinton de Kock after the second T20 International at Boland Park in Paarl on November 29, 2020.
Cricket South Africa (CSA) interim chairman of the board Zak Yacoob He said Thursday that he did not want to blame England for the cancellation of his tour, but made it clear that he felt the decision was not justified.
“We think our protocols have been very good,” he said. “Any idea that (England) left because of something that was our fault is completely wrong.”
The tour of England was called off on Monday after two members of the touring group initially tested positive for Covid-19.
“In the end they were negative,” Yacoob said of follow-up tests that were revealed after the decision was made to cancel the tour.
Yacoob said he believed CSA had been “too lax with the English and their desire to do things they shouldn’t be doing.”
He said he did not want to give details, but it was reported locally that members of the England party had left their biosecure environment to play golf on several occasions and also that they had used nets on the Newlands land in Cape Town that were not authorized for their use due to Covid-19 restrictions.
England played all three scheduled internationals of the Twenty 20s, but none of the three ODIs, the first of which was postponed after a positive test in the South African environment.
When the tour stopped on Monday, the CSA and the England and Wales Cricket Board said in a joint statement “the decision was made jointly by the two Boards to ensure the health and mental and physical well-being of the players of both teams. “.
The UK tour party left South Africa on Thursday, as originally scheduled.
The judge said the shortened England tour had caused uncertainty about other planned tours, which meant “a lot of work” to convince other boards that the South African tour was safe.
Yaboob insisted that he was confident that South Africa was fully capable of hosting future tours, starting with the planned test tour of Sri Lanka later this month.
“Nothing can be absolutely certain, but I am 95 percent confident that the tour will continue,” Yacoob said.
Sri Lanka is due to arrive next week for two test matches, starting in Centurion on December 26.
He was less sure about a test tour scheduled for Australia in February and March.
Responding to suggestions that Australia had proposed that its “absent” series against South Africa be relocated to Perth in Western Australia, Yacoob said that he hoped Australia would act in what it thought was in their best interests in terms of cricket policy.
CSA’s director of cricket Graeme Smith said there had been no engagement on the tour issue with his Australian counterparts, but that an operational meeting was planned for next week.
