Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) has on Sunday (January 4) temporarily suspended all the cricketing activities with immediate effect in the wake of fresh lockdown restrictions announced by the national government due to a spike in COVID-19 cases in the country.
Zimbabwe has not played any international cricket since returning from the six-match limited-overs series tour of Pakistan in November 2020 and now a surge in COVID-19 cases has forced the ZC to put on hold all cricket activities in the country with immediate effect.
Last week, Zimbabwe has reportedly recorded 1342 positive cases for the COVID-19 and even the deadly virus caused 29 deaths – which left no option for the Zimbabwe Government, but to impose a nation-wide curfew with the re-opening of schools also postponed due to the same.
In a statement released by ZC, the national cricket board has insisted that it will try to reschedule all the affected events and fixtures as soon as it is deemed safe to play once again.
ZC said in a statement: “This is a very challenging situation, but ZC's aim is to reschedule all the affected events and fixtures - including the elite men's domestic T20 competition which was scheduled to begin this Monday - for them to be played as soon as it is deemed safe to do so.”
Noteworthy, Zimbabwe was scheduled to host Ireland in April and Afghanistan and India in August 2020, but the tours were called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last month, Zimbabwe was awarded the qualifiers, scheduled between June 18 and July 9, of the 2023 ODI World Cup to be held in India in a revised schedule announced by the ICC, thanks to the postponements of the several fixtures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(With PTI Inputs)
