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Over 50s World Cup Cricket Tournament Cancelled

News

[15 March 2020:] The steering committee of the tournament is South Africa today took the decision to cancel the Over 50s World Cup Cricket Tournament owing to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

After monitoring the situation closely, it was decided to cancel the event in order to help prevent further spread of the virus.
This is in line with guidelines by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases to practise “social distancing” measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 throughout South African communities.

Social distancing is the public health practice that aims to prevent sick people from coming into close contact with healthy people in order to reduce opportunities for disease transmission. It can include large-scale measures like cancelling group events as well as individual decisions, such as avoiding crowds. The goal of social distancing currently is to slow down the outbreak in order to reduce the chance of infection among high-risk populations.

The Over 50s World Cup Cricket tournament is the first ever such event to appear on the South African sporting calendar. It was sad news for the cricketers who have been training for a number of months and those who travelled from abroad to participate in this event, but they understand that this is in everyone’s best interests. Safety is the first priority of the event organisers and that drove them to take this prudent decision.

“It is the right call for the benefit of all South Africans that we reduce the possibility of spreading the virus via social distancing and that is why this tournament had to be cancelled,” says Cobus Bedeker, Managing Director of Evergreen Lifestyle Retirement Villages – sponsor of the event.