Coronavirus pandemic forces Sri Lanka to postpone domestic tournaments

The COVID-19 virus has inflicted its wrath even on Sri Lanka. There 73 cases have been reported, but fortunately, no death has been reported in the country thus far. As many as 16 quarantine centres have been built in the nation by the Sri Lanka Army as a precautionary measure. Overall, the number of cases has almost reached 2,80,000 with the death tolls exceeding 11,500.

On Friday, March 20, it was reported that as many as 627 people died in Italy. The pandemic isn’t showing signs of slowing down by any stretch of the imagination. To add to agony, the situation is expected to worsen even in the next few days. In the meantime, on March 18, it was known that Sri Lanka has closed universities and schools to control the spread of coronavirus.

Lanka postpones cricket amid COVID-19

Amidst all the chaos, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has decided to take a decision regarding cricket in the country. The board said that domestic tournaments in the country would stand suspended until sanity prevails.

SLC took to Twitter and wrote “Taking into consideration the prevailing health (COVID-19 Pandemic) situation in the country, the Tournament Committee of the SLC decided to postpone the conducting of all Domestic Tournaments, until further notice. #SLCDomestic,”

Here is Sri Lanka Cricket’s tweet

International cricket has also come to a halt in Sri Lanka. In March, the Lankans, led by Dimuth Karunaratne, scheduled to lock horns with England in a Test series. But after how things panned out, the series in the World Test Championship (WTC) had to be shelved for the time being.

Other than Lanka, cricket across the globe has also been affected. New Zealand’s tour of Australia and South Africa’s tour of India were also cancelled. The Pakistan Super League (PSL) was also being played behind closed doors, but it had to be postponed due to the deadly coronavirus.

The Indian Premier League (IPL) was scheduled to get underway on March 29. But the start of the T20 league had to be postponed to April 15 after the Indian government called visas, barring a few categories. For the time being, it remains to be seen when cricket resumes in the world.