Cricket News Today: Coronavirus forces postponement of T20 league, Virender Sehwag backs Virat Kohli and more - 5th March 2020
Hello and welcome to the daily roundup of all the major narratives dominating the world of cricket on the 5th of March 2020.
Several interesting news came to the fore on Thursday, with those ranging from Harmanpreet Kaur’s thoughts after India made the Women’s T20 World Cup final to Virender Sehwag throwing his weight behind Virat Kohli.
Elsewhere, Farokh Engineer gave his two cents on India’s decision to field Rishabh Pant in the recently concluded Test series against New Zealand while the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) left no stone unturned in their appointment of selectors.
Finally, the outbreak of the coronavirus forced the postponement of the Everest Premier League.
Here is a look at those happenings in further detail.
#1 Everest Premier League postponed due to the threat of coronavirus
On the 5th of March 2020, the organizers of the Everest Premier League (EPL) took the bold call of putting off the event, in light of the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus. The decision came about after the Government of Nepal had advised the top brass of the competition to avoid mass gatherings.
Also see – PSL 2020 points table
The Managing Director of the EPL, Aamir Akhtar stated,
We are naturally all sad at today's announcement of having to temporarily postpone the 2020 EPL, but we simply have to put the health and well-being of all Nepalis and our overseas players before everything else.
Additionally, he thanked the Government of Nepal for the support they had lent, especially in such tough times.
We would like to thank the government of Nepal for their support and counsel through this challenging period, and we support entirely the professional advice throughout. I would like to assure that as soon as we are able to go ahead with the 2020 season, we will be working to ensure that it will be the spectacular event the likes of which Nepal has never seen before.
The event, which was set to begin on the 14th of March, was looked upon as a potential watershed moment for Nepal cricket, considering the plethora of stars that were expected to be on display.
The likes of Chris Gayle, Mohammad Shahzad and Sandeep Lamichhane had confirmed their participation, meaning that they would’ve provided the tournament with the requisite glamour to make it an overwhelming success.
However, the recent outbreak of the coronavirus has put paid to those hopes, at least for the time being.
Read the full article here: Coronavirus outbreak causes postponement of Everest Premier League