West Indies Under-19s’ tour of the UK, slated to run from August 16 to September 3, has been postponed due to “scheduling clashes”. The initial schedule had included one T20, three List A games and two youth Tests.
“The situation is an unfortunate one as we had planned for the tour to be the end of a two-year development cycle for this group of U-19 players,” Jimmy Adams, CWI’s director of cricket, said. “This tour to the UK, added to the recent World Cup in January, and the tri-series that we hosted in December of last year would have given this cohort an excellent competitive component to cap their two-year U19 program.
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“That said, we will continue to follow up on the cohort, especially those not contracted to franchises, through our Emerging Player program, which has so far facilitated many of our upcoming players who fall in the 19-23 category. Thankfully, while the tour to the UK will not proceed [sic] this year, the ECB are committed to hosting our U-19s at a mutually convenient time in the future.”
Mo Bobat, the ECB’s performance director, said it was the right decision to postpone the tour in the “current climate”. The COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) pandemic has brought sport to a standstill across the world, but the ECB hopes to salvage something from the 2020 summer.