Yesterday morning, England and South Africa fans were turning on their TVs to watch the rescheduled first One Day International between the two countries, however, it got to 45 minutes before wickets were pitched and no teams were at the ground.
A few fans took to Twitter and joked about the teams turning up to Newlands in Cape Town instead of Boland Park in Paarl, but it was later announced by Cricket South Africa that two members of the hotel staff had tested positive for Covid-19 in the recent tests.
With the game having a delayed start, ECB and CSA confirmed that two more members of the England touring party had “unconfirmed positive tests” the whole England squad was isolating and the ECB were planning to retest everyone.
Around 7:45 (GMT) yesterday morning, it was then confirmed that the match had been abandoned.
This was the second false start out in South Africa as we saw Friday’s game also cancelled due to a positive test result coming from the Proteas camp. The third false start came when the ECB and CSA cancelled today’s game as well.
England and Wales Cricket Board & Cricket South Africa are now waiting for the outcome of independent ratification of the two “unconfirmed positive” Covid-19 tests in the England camp before discussing how best to proceed with the remaining games in the limited-overs tour.
The ODI leg of the tour comes after England’s victory in the T20s. The tourists took the series in a 2-0 lead after the first two games at Cape Town and Paarl.
In the third match back at Newlands, England’s batsman, Dawid Malan saw it home with a massive 99 not-out from 47 balls allowing England to pick up their third win but this time by nine wickets.
England won three in three in their T20s and a lot of England fans were hoping that the world cup winners would do the same in the ODIs but the status of the tour is still up in the air.
