Franchise cricketers back in the ‘office’ in Potchefstroom
While most of South Africa returned to the office on Monday, half of the country’s franchise cricketers left for Potchefstroom to enter a bio-bubble for the Momentum One-Day Cup.
Cricket South Africa announced at the weekend that the schedule for the 50-over competition has been revised, with the Momentum One-Day Cup now being held in just one venue, in a bio-secure environment and being reduced to just 15 matches. The franchises are still in their two pools of three teams each, but they will only play within their pool, two matches against each team.
The Dolphins, Titans and Knights will be in Pool A and will kick off the action from Saturday. The Imperial Lions, Cape Cobras and Warriors are in the other pool which will be in action from January 29.
The top two teams in each pool will then contest the semi-finals on February 11 and 12, with the final on Sunday, February 14.
Dr Shuaib Manjra, CSA’s chief medical officer, said the official reason for the decision was as a precaution against the ever-rising tide of Covid-19’s second wave of infections.
“We have seen the number of cases rise significantly and the second peak is reaching new levels that are higher than the first wave. We have seen infection among our players as well, we had to cancel a four-day match, and we have a duty of care to the players. We also want to ensure the integrity of the competition, we don’t want to have to start cancelling games.
“So the best way to do that is by playing the whole competition in a bubble. There are risks associated with flying around the country for games because airports are one of the major sources of infection, they are high-risk. So we have decided on the precautionary option,” Manjra told The Citizen on Monday.
Cutting the number of fixtures down from seven round-robin games each to just four has been necessary so that the players only have to spend 11 days in the bio-bubble, which has increasingly been shown to be quite a tough environment to cope with mentally.
It is a big drawback for the teams in Pool A though that they will face a gap of more than three weeks between their last match and the semi-finals, giving the Pool B teams a definite advantage in that they finish their round-robin games on February 5, leaving a space of just six days before the semi-finals.
While CSA have well-publicised financial troubles, playing in a bio-bubble is not expected to cost them more money than if the tournament was staged normally, plus there is the added bonus that broadcasters SuperSport and the sponsors are unlikely to suffer reduced content due to games being cancelled.