With Victoria experiencing an unfortunate rise in the number of COVID-19 positive cases, Cricket Australia (CA) is considering the move to shift this summer's Boxing Day Test against India away from Melbourne to Adelaide.
The iconic Adelaide Oval ground in South Australia, says a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, has become the likely venue to now host the traditional fixture from December 26 to 30.
CA chairman Earl Eddings is understood to have called for an immediate meeting of his board to ensure the lucrative four-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy isn't affected.
Over 13000 positive cases have been reported in Victoria, including 170 deaths. The grave situation has forced authorities to put state border restrictions in place which, if they remain, will make it impossible for India's Test series to go ahead as scheduled.
Even CA had kept open the option of changing the original dates and venues for the series given the circumstances.
After Victoria, New South Wales is the second worst-hit state in the country by the pandemic, reporting 4000 positive cases.
South Australia, however, has only seen 457 confirmed cases, with 445 of them recovered. That makes Adelaide a suitable venue to probably host two India Tests next summer, unless one of those is moved outside the traditional six grounds, such as Hobart's Blundstone Arena in Tasmania.
As per the schedule, the first Test against India begins on December 3 in Brisbane, followed by the historic D/N Test in Adelaide (December 11-15) and the next two in Melbourne (December 26-30) and Sydney (January 3-7) respectively.
India's visit is extremely important to the financial health of this CA regime, which has had to stand down staff in order to handle the cost of operations in this period.
(Inputs from PTI)
