Zimbabwe Cricket suspends all cricketing activities
Zimbabwe Cricket has temporarily brought all cricket activities in the country to a halt, in view of the new lockdown restrictions announced by the government owing to a rise in Covid-19 cases. In fact, all sporting activities in Zimbabwe have been temporarily suspended, according to a statement by the country's sports and recreation commission.
"This is a very challenging situation, but ZC's aim is to reschedule all the affected events and fixtures - including the elite men's domestic T20 competition which was scheduled to begin this Monday - for them to be played as soon as it is deemed safe to do so," Zimbabwe Cricket said in a statement.
When was Zimbabwe's cricket team last seen in action?
The Zimbabwe cricket team were last seen action when they played a six-match limited-overs series in Pakistan in November 2020.
Zimbabwe have not hosted any team since the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020, which brought all sporting activity across the globe to a stop.
The country was scheduled to host Ireland in April, followed by Afghanistan and India in August 2020. However, all tours were called off keeping in mind the health and safety risks.
Zimbabwe cricket hugely impacted by suspension
The temporary halt in sporting activity will have a huge impact on cricket in Zimbabwe. A men's domestic T20 tournament was set to get underway on January 4 and the participating players were already in quarantine.
In an official release, Zimbabwe Cricket stated the event is now postponed and any attempts to conduct the event will be made when it is safe to do so.
It will be interesting to see how this new development will impact the T20I and Test series against Afghanistan that are scheduled to be held in late January 2021.
The Zimbabwe cricket team are also expected to host Pakistan and Bangladesh in 2021.
"This break is not doing us any favours" - Zimbabwe batsman, Brendan Taylor
Last year, Zimbabwe's senior batsman, Brendan Taylor spoke of how the pandemic had hit the nation's cricket team hard.
"I feel we are a team that needs to be playing more often; we've always been starved of cricket. This year we had a full schedule of international cricket, but that's now been jeopardised by this pandemic. So it's extremely frustrating and hurtful times." he added.