COVID-19 Impact: Sri Lanka Cricket calls off all the domestic cricket tournaments

Sri Lanka Cricket calls off all the domestic cricket tournaments

Sri Lanka Cricket on Saturday called off all the domestic tournaments until further notice in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak all over the world that led to the suspension of all the sporting events and leagues. 

Sri Lanka Cricket calls off all the domestic cricket tournaments

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa also declared the nation-wide curfew in the country till March 23 morning starting from today. This decision has been taken as a preventive measure to control the outbreak of the deadly virus. 

After the following announcement, the Sri Lanka cricket tweeted that, 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

Yesterday, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has also postponed its 2020 season until at least late June. The England Cricket team was scheduled to fly to Sri Lanka for a Test series, however, they canceled the tour on March 12 after seeing the pandemic all over the world.  

Sri Lanka is also seeing the number of cases of coronavirus in the country with over 70 confirmed cases, but no death so far. Sri Lankan government is taking all the possible measures to curb the spreading of the virus and also built as many as 16 quarantine centers all over the Island. The government had already ordered to shut down all the schools and universities on March 18 to control the spread of coronavirus. With the current situation worsening day by day, the Word Test Championship will also be affected by the pandemic as it has to be deferred for now. 

New Zealand’s tour of Australia, South Africa’s tour of India and the Pakistan Super League (PSL) are the other cricketing events hampered and suspended due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The current situation has also left the Indian Premier League on a cliff hanger with no such clarity of when the tournament will start.