{"id":29626,"date":"2021-02-02T03:50:11","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T04:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=29626"},"modified":"2021-02-02T05:03:31","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T05:03:31","slug":"upcoming-australian-test-tour-in-a-holding-pattern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=29626","title":{"rendered":"Upcoming Australian Test tour 'in a holding pattern'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Australian captain Mark Taylor<\/a> has cast serious doubt on the upcoming Test tour of South African, just weeks before the side is due to depart.<\/p>\n

Cricket Australia has named a 19-man squad for the tour,<\/a> but is yet to reach agreement with Cricket South Africa over the schedule for the tour.<\/a><\/p>\n

South Africa has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with Johns Hopkins University reporting the country has had nearly 1.5 million infections, and more than 44,000 deaths.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, a new South African strain of the virus has been identified, with concerns raised over the effectiveness of vaccines against the variant of the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

Purely from a cricket point of view, Australia risks missing out on this year's final of the World Test Championship should the tour be cancelled.<\/p>\n

"I think it's in a holding pattern, but I'll be surprised if it goes ahead," Taylor told Wide World of Sports radio.<\/p>\n

"I'm sure they're trying to get it to happen, because it's part of this Test championship, and Australia really need to play.<\/p>\n

"At the moment they're third on that table, India and New Zealand are above them.<\/p>\n

\"Nathan<\/p>\n

Taylor indicated that while the players would be keen to get on the field, the medical situation in the country would have to take precedence.<\/p>\n

"They'd love to play it, go over there and win, and get themselves in this Test championship final, but you look at the numbers, something like 4,500 people a day still contracting coronavirus over there, still a couple of hundred dying every day, that's got to be a major concern to the players," Taylor said.<\/p>\n

"If the bubble was somehow broken and one of the players or support staff did contract the virus, then where do you go?<\/p>\n

"Will the medical support be the standard that Australia would get here at home at the moment?"<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Australian captain Mark Taylor has cast serious doubt on the upcoming Test tour of South African, just weeks before the side is due to […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29626"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29628,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29626\/revisions\/29628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}