Significant financial blow to USA Cricket as historic series fails to take off

A fresh Covid-19 outbreak within the managed environment has put the final nail in the coffin for the three-match ODI series between USA and Ireland. Both boards had not yet put out an official statement as of Tuesday at noon, but both teams did not show up for their training sessions as stadium ground staff and workers began disassembling hospitality and advertising signage at Broward County Stadium throughout Tuesday morning and early afternoon. Multiple sources have confirmed that the ODI series has been scrapped due to a number of positive Covid-19 tests in the traveling parties, and USA’s players have been notified that their tickets are being booked to fly home today.

Both teams were due to train on Tuesday at the Broward County Stadium ahead of the delayed first match of the series on December 29. However, neither squad arrived at the stadium. Multiple sources told ESPNcricinfo that even though no Ireland players tested positive in a fresh round of PCR tests, multiple members of the Ireland support staff, as well as partners and family members of Ireland players tested positive, meaning that a large number of Ireland players were deemed to be close contacts.

After numerous waves of retests following the false positives that came out of the USA squad camp, only one new player returned a positive PCR test, according to sources. But the fact that it was a player meant that the entire USA team was also deemed to be close contacts of the positive player.

However, the Ireland squad members are understood to have been allowed to leave the team hotel periodically throughout the past week, including on Christmas Day, and were allowed to mix and mingle with traveling family members and partners. It was only after the first Ireland support staff member tested positive on December 27 that their players went into full isolation mode in their hotel rooms.

The cancellation of the ODI series is expected to deal a significant financial blow to USA Cricket, who had gone all out by investing resources to make the historic series happen at short notice. The initial announcement came on November 9 that USA Cricket would be hosting a Full Member for a bilateral series for the first time, giving them six weeks to organize the event. Though the two-match T20I series was completed on December 23 with a total ticketed attendance of just over 1,000 fans (a USA Cricket official stated that attendance for the first match was 328 followed by 744 for the 2nd T20I*) across the two games, the ODIs never got off the ground.

As of Tuesday, the Ireland squad is still scheduled to depart on December 31 for Jamaica to take part in three ODIs and one T20I against West Indies. According to a Cricket Ireland official, “The positives on the staff will have to stay back, but with another PCR pre-travel pending, the main group will still travel as planned.”

*The article was updated on December 28 at 19:35 GMT to reflect ticket attendance information from USA Cricket.