Cricket South Africa (CSA) interim board chairman Zak Yacoob has slammed the visiting England side for their "negative" attitude after returning midway through their scheduled tour of the rainbow nation following scares borne out of COVID-19 positive cases in both team's camp.
After playing the T20I series relatively unscathed, the ODI series had to be called off on Monday (December 7) as two of the touring cricketers returned 'unconfirmed' positive tests which later did prove to be false positives.
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But the growing anxiety after a breach of pandemic protocols at the hotel shared by both teams ultimately led to series' indefinite suspension.
England's director of cricket, Ashley Giles, did admit the three lions weren't quite satisfied with the health arrangements made by CSA.
Yacoob, a retired judge, however, denied suggestions that they weren't upto the mark.
"What I want to negate is the idea that our provision of services was sub-standard, and that there is any justification for the English saying that they did not want to participate and going home," he said in a virtual press conference, as quoted by PTI. "The facts are that ultimately (England) were negative."
"We have gone into our protocols, and we think that (they) have been very good. There may have been an issue of psychological troubles. People may have felt nervous and complicated about the false positives, and so on."
"We do not wish to blame the English, but we wish to say absolutely and completely that any notion that they went away was our fault is completely wrong," Yacoob added.
A dark cloud of uncertainty was hovering around the series with as many as seven positive cases across the two team's camp reported in recent weeks, plus the two within the hotel staff members at the Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town where the Proteas and the Englishmen were staying.
"There is an awkward narrative coming out that third world countries can’t manage these things properly. In my view, we have been managing the virus much better than England has been," continued Yacoob, who instead blamed England for taking the bubble rules lightly.
"The only criticism (of the protocols) I can make is that we were too lax with the English and their desire to do things that, in our strict view, they shouldn’t be doing."
"Unfortunately, we were stronger in preventing our players from doing things and we allowed the visitors a little more laxity."
"We favoured the visitors just a little, not enough to compromise the thing. The problem with that was that it did give rise to some feelings of unfairness as far as our players were concerned. The board regretted that a great deal," he added.
While the series could still be rescheduled being part of the ODI Super League, Yacoob fell just short of demanding an apology from CSA's English counterparts ECB.
"I don’t think we want an apology from anyone, but if they say lies about us we will defend ourselves. I’m prepared to leave it on the basis that we do understand, although it is sometimes difficult for us to understand, the sensitivities of the matter."
"We’ve got this virus for the first time and we do understand how people can get put off. Therefore we have to give people the benefit of the doubt," he added.
