The ongoing Pakistan Super League (PSL) was on Tuesday suspended after the country’s Cricket Board revealed that a foreign player showed symptoms of the dreaded COVID-19 with former captain-turned-commentator Ramiz Raja claiming that it was England’s Alex Hales.
The PSL had entered the knockout stages and semifinalmatches were due to be played on Tuesday and final on Wednesday in Lahore. ThePCB had also shortened the league by four days considering the worseningcoronavirus situation but was forced to call it off on Tuesday. “…This new development came after aplayer who left Pakistan told us that (he has) symptoms and this (decision tosuspend PSL) isn’t in light of being panicked…We made our decision after thoroughdeliberation,” PCB CEO Wasim Khan said.
“But before this there was no suspected case at all,which is why the decision wasn’t made before,” he added.
Pakistan’s former Test captain Raja claimed that Hales mightbe the player being suspected. As a precautionary measure, all PSL players andbroadcasters are now being tested for the virus.
“What I know is that he is yet to have tests but wedon’t know whether the symptoms he has is of Corona or not. But we all now needto be very cautious and obviously adopt a common sense approach to deal withthis problem,” Raja said.
The 31-year-old Hales, a right-handed opener, has gone intoself-isolation after reaching England.
“…I awoke early on Sunday morning having developed afever and followed the governments advice of self-isolation, a process I am obviouslystill following having developed a dry and persistent cough,” Hales saidin a statement.”At this stage, it has not been possible tobe tested although I am hopeful that might be the case later today so I can getabsolute confirmation of my current health status,” he added.