London:England’s white-ball captain Eoin Morgan has cast doubts on the T20 World Cup going ahead as per schedule, saying that hosts Australia would be wary of risking a second wave of coronavirus outbreak in the country.
Australia, who are scheduled to host the T20 World Cup from October 18 to November 15, has been largely successful in containing the contagion by sealing their borders and imposing travel restrictions. “I’d be surprised if it goes ahead,” Morgan was quoted as saying by the ‘Press Association’.
“My reasons for that would be if you look at how Australia has handled the pandemic, they’ve shut down the borders pretty early, had a limited number of cases and deaths in comparison to the rest of the world,” he added. Morgan said going ahead, Australia, which has reported just over 7,100 positive cases with more than 6500 recoveries and 103 deaths, would be weighing their options.
“Their biggest worry moving forward – a small negative to a huge positive – would be they almost don’t know what the immunity would be like if the virus does have an outbreak,” he added. Morgan said that having teams flying in from across the world will come with the possibility of a second COVID-19 outbreak in the country. “Having 16 teams across several venues has the potential to expose something.”(PTI)