AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE Tanzania Cricket Association (TCA) has welcomed President John Magufuli’s suggestion to resume sports activities in the country.
TCA is now looking for ways on how they will return to cricket activities by ensuring their players and fans are safe from the outbreak.
TCA Communication Officer, Atif Salim told the ‘africa-press’ in Dar es Salaam yesterday the association’s top brass will soon meet to share ideas on training models and regimes especially for the national team amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“Yes we heard the speech and have received it with lots of positivity. However, there has been a mixed reaction from the few club owners and players.”
“Some of players and owners are still worried if the outbreak will be contained by the end of June or it will still persist…over coming back as soon as possible to the game, some have shown hesitancy amid fears of the virus,” Salim said.
“We will come up with plans and possibly expect to begin by sharpening the national team and later resume the leagues that were suspended due to the outbreak.”
“The earliest step will be returning of training for the national team… that will be a top priority. From then, we will possibly draft procedures to resume the leagues. As of now, the 2020 calendar is highly affected,” he said.
Regarding the inconvenience, Salim said the TCA has decided to keep everything pending for now, as there are chances that some of the planned leagues will not take place this year.
“We have already delayed the Division A1 League for T20, which was to begin soon, and we have the pro10 league which has not completed, this is why we have decided to keep everything pending for now until everything is clear,” he said.
Cricket is one of the least physical contact sport but the TCA decided to stop games as it involves gathering.
“I urge people to take this pandemic very seriously as we are fighting an invisible enemy at the moment,” Salim warned.
He added; “Sports was meant to bring people together but in the current situation, it is better to maintain distance.”
The national cricket team suspended camp for ICC Men’s T20 World Cup African Qualifiers immediately after the government announced a 30-day ban on all sports and gatherings since March 17th this year.
The 2020–21 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Africa Qualifiers were also called off after the International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed that all ICC qualifying events scheduled to take place before 30 June 2020 had been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
