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Victorian Cricket Coronavirus Update

In the best interests of cricket participants and the wider community, this communication outlines how Cricket Victoria will be doing our part to further protect players, staff, volunteers and match officials at all levels of the game plus the wider community during the global coronavirus pandemic.

Cricket Australia, in consultation with its State & Territory Associations, has cancelled the Marsh Sheffield Shield final for 2019/20 and Cricket Victoria has taken the further step of cancelling the remainder of the Premier Cricket season, effective immediately.

Cricket Victoria is now working through the declaration of final results in competitions. We expect to be able to make those announcements within the next 24 hours after reviewing applicable competition rules. Teams and competitions that are impacted will be advised.

Cricket Victoria also strongly recommends and expects local community cricket and school competitions to take the same leadership position and cancel all cricket playing and training activity for the remainder of the 2019/20 season in response to this unprecedented global health issue.

This expectation also applies to competitions that are just starting or about to commence in some parts of Victoria. This is an evolving issue and decisions on starting or recommencing should be made carefully in line with government advice and direction from Cricket Australia and Cricket Victoria.

We know many people in cricket communities around Victoria will be disappointed with this decision, but it has been made in our communities’ best interests in line with government and expert medical advice from Cricket Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, John Orchard.

This medical advice is based upon:
The considerable measures that need to be in place to be consistent with the social distancing measures that are required to reduce risks of spreading the virus.
Cricket volunteers vary in age and older members of the community are likely to be more significantly affected by COVID-19.
The number of players and officials who could unknowingly be in contact with someone who has COVID-19 infection with the risk of spreading the virus in the club social environment.
A significant percentage of players will also sensibly be undertaking social isolation from the work place or schools and it would be unreasonable to continue if a team has players undertaking social isolation for legitimate reasons.
We acknowledge that this is a more extreme step than communicated in previous weeks, but our advice now is that the risks of playing organised sport at any level are too high to safely continue.

We also recommend that all clubs and associations consider the cancellation or postponement of end of season functions.

As all communities, organisations and institutions around the world rally to slow the spread of the coronavirus, so must Australian cricket. We hope that by taking these actions now we can play a small part in ‘flattening the curve’ and stemming the spread of the virus.

For any further information, please read the Cricket Australia FAQs document here.

Our number one priority is to the cricket communities that we lead and serve, as well as their families. Thank you for your commitment to cricket in your community. All of our thoughts are with you and your families as you navigate these uncertain times.