New Zealand tour postponed

Picture Credit: Twitter/@BLACKCAPS

The COVID-19 pandemic has once again started wreaking havoc across the globe. Just when the sports tournaments were starting to run smoothly, a new variant, namely Omicron has entered the arena. And so starts the postponements and cancellation of sporting events. The latest sporting event to join the postponement list is New Zealand's cricket team's tour to Australia.

The Blackcaps were scheduled to tour Australia for a white-ball series between January 24 and February 9. But the visiting board announced on Wednesday that they are calling off the tour for now due to some travel complications. "The BLACKCAPS tour of Australia, initially scheduled for January 24-February 9, has been postponed until further notice, due to the lack of certainty over when the squad would be able to return to New Zealand," wrote the New Zealand cricket board in its statement.

"Despite a proposal from New Zealand Cricket and Cricket Australia to extend the length of the tour so that the BLACKCAPS could return home at a time more manageable for the MIQ process, the Government confirmed today it had no capacity to meet the request," it further stated.

The tour was scheduled last year 

NZC chief executive David White said the tour was initially scheduled last year after the government signalled its intention to relax MIQ restrictions relating to the trans-Tasman border.

“As we now know, the advent of Omicron prompted a change of strategy from the Government, resulting in a hard 10-day mandatory isolation period being imposed on all incoming travellers. NZC and CA had explored a proposal to expand the tour and to push out the date on which the squad might return to New Zealand, in the hope that might be more achievable for the Government. But we received advice this morning that they could not provide certainty over this, either," said David White.

What is MIQ restriction?

MIQ is the short form for Managed Isolation and Quarantine. The New Zealand government has adopted this measure to keep COVID-19 out of the country to a possible extent. And with the Omicron variant wreaking havoc, the state government has decided to extend MIQ measures by 10 days.