Another Covid blow for South Africa but SL tour remains unaffected, for now

South African cricket's covid crisis deepened on Monday when a first-class match was halted after one of the players involved tested positive. The game featured six members of South Africa's squad for the imminent Test series against Sri Lanka, and was played at the same ground where the rubber is due to start.

South Africans will wonder whether those pertinent facts will prompt SLC to revisit the decision they took to fulfil their commitment to tour, which was confirmed in the wake of England abandoning their visit with half their six white-ball matches unplayed. But word from Sri Lanka on Monday was that the players were preparing to travel. Their coach, Mickey Arthur, a South African, tweeted on Sunday that he had arrived in the country.

"We are following the situation very closely," SLC chief executive Ashley de Silva said. "We have sent a doctor to South Africa along with our head coach to monitor the situation. There are certain things that will be implemented and we are being briefed on all the developments. Reports we have got are pretty good. We are confident of the tour going ahead."

Still, a release suggested CSA were cognisant of the sensitivity of the situation: "With player safety and welfare paramount during the Covid-19 hit cricket season, and taking in consideration the upcoming Test series between South Africa and Sri Lanka, a decision was carried out to call off the [first-class] match."

England's tour ended dramatically because seven people in both camps and among staff at the hotel where the squads were staying were reported to have contracted the disease. The two cases in the England camp were later said to be false positives.

The nightmare continued on Monday, when CSA said the match between the Titans and the Dolphins was halted after a "Dolphins' player [who] experienced symptoms during day one" returned a positive test. Both squads and their support staff will be tested. Players who are negative for the virus could be forced to isolate for five days if they have been in close contact with someone who has the disease. Close contact is defined as being within two metres of that person for a total of at least 15 minutes over the course of 24 hours.

The cancelled game involved Aiden Markram, Dean Elgar, Lungi Ngidi, Keshav Maharaj, Sarel Erwee and Keegan Petersen - all of them in the Test squad - and was played at Centurion, where the Test series is scheduled to start on December 26. Markram and Elgar are South Africa's opening pair. In the absence of Kagiso Rabada, who has a groin injury, Ngidi will lead the attack. Maharaj is the only specialist spinner in the squad. The home side's ranks would be significantly disrupted if any of those players test positive, although less so in Maharaj's case because surfaces at Centurion and the Wanderers - where the second Test starts on January 3 - are not usually friendly to spinners.

That Covid was brought to the ground where the series is set to start was cause for concern, but Titans chief executive Jacques Faul said that was a manageable aspect of the challenge: "The cleaning of the venue is, by comparison with everything else that needs to be done, the easy part of dealing with the virus. But an incident like this will make us even more aware."

Shuaib Manjra, CSA's chief medical officer, cleared Centurion: "SuperSport Park was not responsible for this." In any event, the ground will be scrubbed from top to bottom, as it would have been even if the virus hadn't found its way there.

Like Faul said, that's not difficult to do, in relative terms. Instead, staying ahead of an enemy that seems to know more about us than we know about is far more demanding. As Manjra said, "We're sailing a ship while we're trying to build it."