Australia’s sports minister has raised “serious questions” about the fate of the scheduled Perth Test of the Ashes series. The concerns come amid the growing uncertainty over the strict COVID-19 regulations which has put a question mark on the fate of the entire tour, scheduled to start in the first week of December.
England players have expressed extreme reluctance to travel to Australia under strict Covid-19 restrictions and the minister also said that if the Test match could not be done without players going through a “prolonged” quarantine.
"We've had to do a lot of work to organise quarantine arrangements for cricketers coming into Australia. There's serious questions about whether there'll be a test match in Perth this summer. If there's no chance of coming here without prolonged quarantine, it just won’t occur,” Sports Minister, Richard Colbeck said to Perth radio station 6PR.
The Ashes series is scheduled to start on December 8 with a traditional Test at the Gabba followed by three Test matches in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. There were earlier reports about the Perth Test as well and it was widely speculated that the Ashes series will end with two Test matches in Sydney instead of the final Test at the newly-built Optus Stadium in Perth.