If the series loss against India wasn’t enough then here comes another blow for Australian cricket. Their tour to South Africa has been cancelled effectively ruling them out from the World Test Championship final. Australia are currently placed at the third position on the points table with 69.2% points and 332 points in total. The Aussies were in contention of making it to the final of the World Test Championship which will be played from June 18 to June 22 at the Lord’s Cricket Ground in England.
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It is a known fact that Australia’s chances in the WTC were severely dented after their 1-2 loss in the 4-match Border-Gavaskar trophy. They were pinning their hopes of qualifying for the final by not losing against South Africa in the three-match Test series and by winning at least two games. However, sources report that Cricket Australia, the parent body for Australian cricket has called off the Australia tour of South Africa comprising three Test matches in February and March 2021 after a Covid-19 outbreak in the host country.
CA put out an official statement about the cancellation of the tour:
Popular journalist, Daniel Brettig broke the news of CA cancelling the highly anticipated Test series between Australia and South Africa. He went on to tweet that, “Aust tour of SAf is off. Official. That also effectively eliminates Aust from World Test Championship #AUSvSA.” In another tweet, Brettig also shared the official statement made by CA’s interim CEO Nick Hockley regarding the South Africa tour.
Called off due to Covid complications essentially 👇 #AUSvSA pic.twitter.com/vtVwDOkaPA
— Daniel Brettig (@danbrettig) February 2, 2021
Hockley stated that South Africa is experiencing a second Covid-19 wave and Australia doesn’t want to risk the health of their players and other staff officials by conducting a tour in such conditions. He was quoted saying, “Due to the public health situation in South Africa, which includes a second wave and a new variant of the virus, and following extensive due diligence with medical experts, it has become clear that traveling from Australia to South Africa at this current time poses an unacceptable level of health and safety risk to our players, support staff and the community.”
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This was the only Test series that was left with Australia to make an attempt to qualify for the WTC finals. Since they won’t be playing the three fixtures as planned earlier, there is no chance of them making it to the top two of the points table. With this, the fight is now between India, and England, who are placed at 1st, and 4th position respectively to grab the other finalist’s spot. New Zealand have assured itself of a place in the WTC finals.
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