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Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
THE incoming tour by Ireland that had been set for April, has been postponed due to the mutating Covid-19 pandemic, Ireland Cricket has announced.

Ireland Cricket said it had been advised by Zimbabwe Cricket that the tour cannot proceed as scheduled due to the country’s Covid-19 situation.

Zimbabwe was set to host Ireland for three one-day internationals and three Twenty20 Internationals at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo.

The series was set to kick off with the T20I games on April 2, 4, 5, followed by the ODIs on April 8, 10 and 12.

Richard Holdsworth, high performance director for Cricket Ireland, said: “We’re obviously disappointed, but to be honest, it is not an unexpected announcement from our Zimbabwean counterparts. We appreciate their efforts and willingness to try and make the tour possible, but in the end the health and safety of players and support staff must be of primary consideration.

“We’ll now look at whether alternate fixtures can be arranged during that period, which is a crucial window in advance of a busy home season and in a T20 World Cup year. This places even greater importance on the proposed Ireland Wolves tour in February/March given the need to provide many of our players the volume and quality of cricket we need to keep the momentum in player development we have been seeing over the last few years. We expect to be providing an update on the Wolves situation in coming days.”

The Chevrons are presently preparing for a series against Afghanistan to be played in Abu Dhabi early next month.
It will mark the first time that Zimbabwe and Afghanistan play each other in Test cricket since the Afghans got the green light to play the longer version of the game in June 2017.

The series will see the two teams engaging in two Tests and three T20s. Meanwhile, the Lady Chevron’s one-day and T20 international series against Pakistan gets underway in Harare today.

The series, which marks the end of Zimbabwe’s two-year hiatus from international cricket, will be played behind closed doors at Harare Sports Club in line with the Covid-19 lockdown measures. Zimbabwe Cricket has said the tour will be streamed live on YouTube. — @innocentskizoe