Home
New Zealand's limited-overs tour of Australia has been postponed indefinitely due to uncertainty over when the visitors would be able to return home due to Covid-19 protocols. The New Zealand Cricket (NZC) and Cricket Australia (CA) confirmed the news on Wednesday (January 19).
The tour which was scheduled to start from January 24 and go on till February 9, comprised three ODIs in Perth, Hobart and Sydney and one T20I in Canberra. NZC and CA said that they are discussing dates to reschedule the limited-overs series.
NZC chief executive David White said in a statement, "As we now know, the advent of Omicron prompted a change of heart from the NZ Government, resulting in a hard 10-day mandatory isolation period being imposed on all incoming travellers.”
“NZC and CA had explored a proposal to expand the tour and to push out the date on which the squad might return to New Zealand in the hope that might be more achievable for the Government.”
"Unfortunately, we received advice this morning that they could not provide certainty over this," White added.
The World Test champions and World Cup runners-up in ODI and T20I were due to arrive on Australian shores next week.
“We are extremely disappointed that we won’t be able to play the scheduled matches against New Zealand as planned, however we will continue to work with New Zealand Cricket to reschedule the series,” CA boss Nick Hockley said in a statement released on Wednesday afternoon.
“We look forward to welcoming Sri Lanka to Australia next month and will confirm the schedule for that series as soon as possible,” he further added.
It is the third successive summer that Australia and New Zealand have had white-ball fixtures postponed by the Covid-19 pandemic. This also means that there are currently no ODIs scheduled for the Australian men's team for the first summer in 44 years.
Australia’s summer of white-ball cricket will only feature Sri Lanka, who will be playing a five match T20 series in Australia.
