Queenstown appears to have been overlooked as an isolation base for the West Indies and Pakistan cricket teams during their tours of New Zealand this summer.
Although the tours’ schedules will be released next week, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) chief executive David White said yesterday the teams would arrive in Auckland and "most likely" take a chartered flight to Christchurch, where they would be based during the quarantine period.
NZC international touring team liaison officer Ian Paterson, of Queenstown, who will be accompanying the teams throughout their tours, said there would be good reasons for the decision, but it was disappointing for the resort nonetheless.
"It would’ve been good just to have them training here, and it’s certainly a good place to be isolated," Mr Paterson said.
Mr White said if Christchurch was confirmed as the teams’ base, they would train at NZC’s high performance centre at Lincoln University.
The West Indies and Pakistan will tour in November, December and January, and there are also strong prospects for tours by the Australian men and women’s teams, the English women’s side, and the Bangladesh men’s team later in the summer.
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Queenstown is the last place I would setup quantine facilities. It is expensive, a long way from major hospital facilities , but most of it it is one of the few places almost guaranteed to get visitors from hot spots when they crop up. You just have to look at how many people from Auckland jumped ship as soon as he current lock downs were announced