The Covid-19 pandemic has hit Cricket Australia hard, resulting in it imposing up to 80 per cent wage cuts on a majority of its staff. Now, according to a report in ESPNcricinfo, Cricket Australia has received encouraging signs regarding a possible exemption in restrictions for India to tour them in the summer, even if the the travel ban, currently in place, isn’t yet relaxed

Australia are scheduled to host India for four Tests, three ODIs and as many T20Is from October to January, the Tests being part of the World Test Championship.

Australia prime minister Scott Morrison said that work was being done on setting guidelines for the resumption of live sporting activity. “What is a safe way to be able to do that, and to get as much consistency as we possibly can across all the states and territories,” he said. “That was strongly supported today by all the states and territories, having something along those lines they would find very helpful.

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“In terms of the big codes – AFL, NRL, things like that – they’re both working through states and territories presently. And what we’ll be doing, and particularly what the medical expert panel will be doing, will be drawing their proposals together. My understanding is that they have already had quite a lot of expert advice going into their plans. That will probably present a lot of the homework that needs to be done to support the expert panel in setting out what some of those principles are.”

Australia last hosted India for three T20Is, four Tests and three ODIs in 2018/19. India won the Test and ODI legs, whereas the T20I series was tied.