Melbourne: Cricket Australia (CA) is aware that the COVID-19 pandemic may force a change in schedule when India tours Down Under. Hence the board is keeping the option open of hosting all the four Tests in a single venue only. Cricket Australia (CA) announced Thursday the four venues. They are Brisbane (December 3-7), Adelaide (December 11-15), Melbourne (December 26-30) and Sydney (January 3-7) respectively.
However, CA chief executive Kevin Roberts said schedule could change depending on the travel restrictions due to the health crisis.
“That (schedule) assumes that state borders are open to domestic travel. It may be that circumstances dictate that when the time comes maybe we can only use one or two venues. We really don’t know any of that yet,” Roberts told reporters Friday.
“There is a lot of variables based on whether we have four venues in four states or as little as one venue in one state. There are endless scenarios and possibilities,” Roberts added.
Roberts also said that the country’s cricket board will lose AUD 80 million if the T20 World Cup doesn’t happen this year. He warned of another round of cost-cutting measures to deal with the impact of the coronavirus.
The governing body has already furloughed about 80 percent of its staff and reduced grants to member states by 25 per cent. However, New South Wales and Queensland have not agreed to accept the reduced amount. The state associations were also forced to cut jobs in the last few weeks.
India agreeing to make the trip Down Under this year for a bilateral series starting October is certainly a good sign for CA. The series is worth AUD 300 million in revenue.
However, Roberts said CA was still short of AUD 80 million. “The likelihood of significant crowds is very slim – ordinarily that would deliver well over AUD 50 million revenue to CA,” Roberts told reporters.
“The T20 World Cup is a big question and that’s a factor of perhaps 20 million. We have been hopeful all along that it could be staged in October-November. However, now you would have to say there’s a very high risk about the prospect of that happening,” Roberts added.
Agencies
