Cricket South Africa (CSA) have conducted over 100 novel coronavirus (Covid-19) tests at six franchises and seven of those came back positive.
The tests were conducted in the past week on players and staff at the various franchise hubs across the country.
As a non-contact sport, cricket was given the go-ahead to resume training and playing when the level 3 lockdown regulations were announced.
On Tuesday morning, the organisation announced they will be hosting an innovative 3TeamCricket (3TC) tournament at SuperSport Park in Centurion next Saturday, but his has now been postponed until further notice.
TESTING HAS BEEN ONGOING
CSA's chief medical officer Shuaib Manjra confirmed to the Sunday Times that seven tests returned positive results.
"We have tested players and support staff and not only for the tournament. For the tournament, we will test them again.
"We've isolated them, we've traced their contacts and suggested that their contacts also be isolated as well.
"Those who are affected will not be part of the tournament if and when it takes place."
Manjra said they have been in contact with the sports ministry with regards to the Covid-19 results.
SPORTS MINISTER NOT HAPPY
During Friday's parliamentary sports portfolio committee meeting where CSA were briefing the committee and the ministry, minister of sport, arts and culture Nathi Mthethwa said his department had not given CSA the green light to host the 3TC tournament as they were just processing it.
That venture has been postponed until there is enough of a health clearance and permission for the players to participate.
"We've been in contact with the department of sports, arts and culture. The results have gone from the various laboratories to the department of health.
"We've made all our results available to the department of sport and they would engage with the department of health with regards to the results," Manjra said.
"The results weren't going to have a significant material impact on the tournament."
CSA's acting CEO Jacques Faul said they expected to have positive Covid-19 tests, but were surprised at the low percentage of positive ones.
"We expected this and why shouldn't we, as a segment of the population, not test positive. It was expected. It's part of our lives now, which is why we do the testing. It's both players and coaching staff, but out of respect for their privacy, we won't be releasing names, but it's more staff than players," Faul said.
"We're sitting at 7%, so we're encouraged by the low number. Why would cricketers and cricket administrators not test positive for this? It is quite a low number."
With the 3TC tournament on ice until further notice, Faul said they weren't expecting to either play or train until the lockdown regulations were on level one. He conceded they could have been slightly hasty by organising a tournament.
"We were a bit ambitious with the dates because we're not sure how long these permissions take.
"Players have to train first and we have to take that into account. We'll just need to get permission, then we'll host again," Faul said.
"We don't want to mess with people's lives. One of our first strategic pillars is safety and we don't want to mess with that."
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