Sheffield Shield limbo as Victoria NSW blocked from SA
Plans for the Sheffield Shield have been thrown into further disarray after New South Wales and Victoriaâs trips to South Australia for hotel quarantine were blocked by health authorities.
The NSW menâs squad were meant to be flying into Adelaide this weekend and Victoria the following week, each to complete two weeks of hard quarantine before spending around another week training ahead of their games.
Victoria and New South Wales are unsure of when their Sheffield Shield campaigns will begin.Credit:Getty Images
While talks between Cricket Australia and the SA government are continuing, neither state squad expects to be making the trip anytime soon, as the clock starts to run down on the window available for Shield and domestic one day games to be played before the early December start of the Big Bash League.
Should the border remain closed, Victoria and NSW may even be compelled to play a series of matches against one another.
Frustration is mounting among fully-vaccinated players and staff about the problems with state borders amid the COVID-19 outbreaks in Sydney and Melbourne. Only two domestic fixtures, between South Australia and Western Australia in Adelaide, have been played so far.
CA is currently in negotiations with the ECB about quarantine and biosecurity arrangements for this summerâs Ashes series. Cricket Tasmania has already flagged that Novemberâs scheduled Test against Afghanistan will be postponed.
âThe plan is still for us to go and quarantine along with NSW somewhere, and then once weâre clean, so to speak, we will travel around and play in different places,â Victoriaâs coach Chris Rogers told SEN Radio before the update was conveyed this afternoon.
âThatâs the plan at the moment, but thatâs not set in stone.
âI think Adelaide. I donât think weâll be quarantining with NSW. I think theyâre due to go out this weekend, but weâre not. So we might have to wait a week or so, but looks like weâll be going to Adelaide and from there weâll wait and see.â
Queenslandâs meeting with Tasmania in Brisbane was postponed after Queensland reported a handful of local COVID cases on Tuesday, with the Tigersâ squad racing back home to Hobart out of fear that their state government would close the border. The womenâs Test match between Australia and India has been able to get underway on the Gold Coast, meanwhile.
âWe were planning originally to be starting the season on September 11, so we had the guys up and ready really around that stage,â Rogers said.
âSince then weâre in a holding pattern, so weâve had opportunities to play some intra-squad matches. But you can just sense the guys are getting a little bit frustrated that they canât play in proper matches. Weâre desperately hoping to go and play some of those.
âWeâre hoping we go into quarantine, not this weekend but the weekend after, and after two weeks of quarantine weâll probably need another six to seven days of getting the bowlers back up and bowling and prepared to play. So, weâre probably looking at about four weeks from now.â
Daniel Brettig is The Age's chief cricket writer and the author of several books on cricket.Connect via Twitter.
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