PSL Season 6 Postponed Indefinitely due to Covid-19 outbreak

The ongoing season of the Pakistan Super League has been postponed indefinitely due to a rising number of cases of Covid-19. A total of seven players and officials’ players have tested positive for the virus in the last week which has led to the postponement of the tournament. This decision was taken on Thursday (March 4^th) during a meeting between the organising committee and all the team owners and management staff.

The first positive case was Australian leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed who had shown symptoms and was put into isolation on the 1^st of March. This was followed up by English Batsman Tom Banton testing positive one day later along with another member of staff. Three more positive tests were returned on Thursday (March 4^th) from two different teams which led to the decision of postponing the league after considering the health and safety of all the participants.

Wasim Khan, the CEO of the Pakistan Cricket Board stated that “We had a discussion this morning with the franchise owners and we came to the conclusion that it was best to postpone the event. We entered that meeting with the franchisees with one or two possible solutions, one in terms of looking to halt proceedings for five days until we were able to make sense of what was going on and see whether we could move forward. There was a strong consensus that it was untenable to continue based on the fact that it was outside of ours and others reasonable sort of areas because of what had taken place.”

He also stated that a full investigation will be conducted to find out if there were any breaches in the bio-secure bubble or any lapses in terms of the protocols that were put in place.

This is the second year in a row that the tournament has been postponed. Season 5 was postponed last March as the virus heightened around the globe but was then successfully completed in November with the Karachi Kings emerging as champions. This season, only 14 of the 34 scheduled games have been played so far and it is unclear when the tournament will be rescheduled. Some reports state that the tournament will be completed in May 2021 which might cause a clash between the latter stages of the Indian Premier League.