Cricket South Africa (CSA) have lodged a formal complaint with the ICC after Cricket Australia’s (CA) indefinitely postponed their next month’s tour to South Africa.
Last week, CSA wrote to both the ICC and CA expressing their dissatisfaction on the postponemnt of the tour.
In a letter sent by acting CEO Pholetsi Moseki, CSA are invoking both the World Test Championship (WTC) and the FTP agreement terms in search of points on the WTC table as well as financial compensation from CA. They have asked the ICC to look into whether CA’s cancellation amounts to acceptable or unacceptable non-compliance as per the WTC terms, bearing in mind that the series cannot be rescheduled before the end of the WTC window, which is April 30, 2021. They also want ICC to obtain a report on the health situation in South Africa to determine if Australia breached the terms by not traveling.
According to the ICC’s FTP agreement, which has been in place since 2004, member countries are obliged to fulfil their fixtures unless there are circumstances which prevent them from doing so, including government instruction.
Earlier, CA had postponed their next month’s Test tour to South Africa owing to “unacceptable health and safety risk” in that country because of a fresh COVID-19 outbreak.
“Following extensive due diligence with medical experts, it has become clear that traveling from Australia to South Africa at this current time poses an unacceptable level of health and safety risk to our players, support staff and the community,” CA chief executive Nick Hockley said.
Later, Cricket South Africa (CSA) slammed the CA, terming the move “extremely” disappointing which will lead to “serious financial loss”.
“We are extremely disappointed by the decision of CA,” Cricket South Africa (CSA) director of cricket, Graeme Smith said in a statement.
“CSA has been working tirelessly in recent weeks to ensure that we meet every single expectation of CA,” he added.
Earlier last month, CA had named a 19-man squad for the tour