South Africa tour of Sri Lanka off until ‘normality returns’

South Africa’s planned tour of Sri Lanka in June has been postponed, the controlling bodies of the two countries announced on Monday.
Sri Lanka Cricket said it had decided with Cricket South Africa that the tour should be indefinitely postponed.

Sri Lanka has now not played a game since losing two T20s against West Indies in early March. England pulled out of a tour to the island just before the opening match.

The governing body said South Africa will visit “once normality returns and also when the international cricket calendars of both nations open up for a rescheduling”.

South Africa were last in Sri Lanka in 2018 when they lost a two-match Test series 2-0 and a one-off T20, but won 3-2 in the one-day internationals.

Sri Lanka won a two Test series but lost the ODIs 5-0 and T20 series 3-0 when they went to South Africa in February last year.

The visitors were due to play three one-day internationals and three Twenty20 internationals. 

The one-day games would have been South Africa’s first fixtures in the International Cricket Council’s new one-day league.  

Cricket South Africa acting chief executive Jacques Faul cited health concerns and the fact that the South African players would have been unable to prepare properly because of the country’s coronavirus lockdown as the main reasons for the postponement.  

“It is very sad that we have been forced to take this step and we will re-schedule the tour as soon as cricket returns to a sense of normality and our international fixture list allows,” said Faul.  
“It would have been a particularly important tour for us with the three ODIs counting for the new ICC one-day league and the T20 programme being part of our preparation for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup scheduled for Australia later this year.”  

Faul said it was “very frustrating for the players who want to build on the good form they showed at the back end of our home summer against Australia”.  

South Africa finished an otherwise undistinguished season with a 3-0 one-day series win against Australia.