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The postponement announcement was made just over an hour before Friday’s day and night game began at Newlands in Cape Town.
FILE: The Proteas test team. Image: CSA / Twitter
CAPE TOWN – The South African team doctor said on Friday he was concerned about a possible bursting of the team’s biosecurity ‘bubble’ after the first one-day international match against England was postponed because a South African player tested positive for COVID-19.
The postponement announcement was made just over an hour before Friday’s day and night match began at Newlands in Cape Town.
Dr. Shuaib Manjra said he was “surprised” by the positive test. Retests will now take place on Saturday ahead of what is now planned as the opening meeting in the three-game series in Paarl on Sunday.
There will be more testing after the second game planned in Cape Town on Monday, before the final game scheduled on Wednesday.
“We will reassess all of our players and hotel staff on Saturday and await the results and determine a course of action,” he said.
He did not speculate on whether the three games could continue if there were more positive tests.
“This test has surprised us because we were confident in the biosecure environment,” said Dr. Manjra.
He said the new infection had occurred since players and staff entered what was considered a safe ‘bubble’ before the series.
“There has been some type of infraction that we have investigated in great detail to try to determine where this happened, talking to the player and looking at the images from the security cameras.”
Manjra admitted that the England camp had expressed concern that both squads were staying at the same hotel in Cape Town, near the Newlands field.
“England is questioning the confidence they have in the biosecure environment, and rightly so. We respect that concern and have met with England’s medical teams,” he said.
Ashley Giles, managing director of England men’s cricket, said the health and safety of England’s players and management were the number one priority.
“The England game will remain at its base in Cape Town on Friday and Saturday and we are hopeful that the three-game series will be played before departing next Thursday,” Giles said in a statement.
Dr Manjra dismissed what a team spokesperson said was a rumor that at least one South African player had left the hotel without authorization.
“I can state categorically that no player could leave the hotel environment,” said the doctor. He said that there was strict security, supervised by a police colonel: “It is impossible to go out except in an official vehicle with an official driver.”
It was previously announced that there had been two positive tests in the South African camp after they met on November 18. The infected players were placed in isolation at the team hotel and team management said they had recovered and were available for the day’s one-series after missing a three-game Twenty20 series.
The England tour is the South African team’s first experience of being in a biosecurity bubble, but England, which flew to South Africa on a chartered flight, successfully hosted teams from the West Indies, Pakistan and Australia this year without any players. was infected.
According to a statement from the two control bodies, the South African player’s positive status emerged from tests carried out after his team’s last scheduled practice on Thursday.
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