As the uncertainty continues over the county cricket in England due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, Gloucestershire has become the latest county club to cancel all their overseas signings for the 2020 season due to the global COVID-19 crisis.
Earlier, the county club had already terminated the contract of ace Indian batsman Cheteswar Pujara, who was due to play six games for the side this year, as he was unable to fulfill the deal because of the travel emergency after the first seven rounds of the Championship postponed due to the pandemic.
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And now on Tuesday (May 5), the Gloucestershire has terminated the contract of Afghanistan leg-spinner Qais Ahmad and Australian pacer Andrew Tye after all professional cricket in England and Wales was suspended until July 1 due to the global health crisis.
Ahmad and Tye were due to play for the club in the T20 Blast this year. The young Afghan lad was also due to play in the County Championship for the Gloucestershire.
Gloucestershire chairman John Hollingdale and CEO Will Brown said in a joint statement: “In order to protect our finances and the club as best we can we have had to sadly terminate our 2020 season contracts with our three overseas players Cheteshwar Pujara, Qais Ahmad and AJ Tye who was due to join the team later in the summer.”
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The statement further reads, “We know how excited we all were at the prospect of seeing both new and returning faces this year and we're very sorry that this won't be possible. The delay to the season, the postponement of the Hundred and the later start of the T20 Blast as well as the aforementioned financial pressures meant it just wasn't feasible to bring them over in 2020. We would like to thank all three of them for their support and understanding.”
They signed off by saying, “ECB monies related to broadcast rights will quite possibly suffer without the new tournament and whilst the ECB are doing all they can to support the game and it's counties there is a chance this pain may come down to the county network and us as an individual club. We do, however, remain in a robust position to weather this storm but with the playing and watching of cricket likely to be different from what we're used to for some time to come.”
(With ANI Inputs)
