Canterbury [UK]: New Zealand pacer Matt Henry will not be playing for England's county Kent Cricket due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and disruption to the 2020 county cricket season.
"Kent Cricket can confirm that New Zealand International Matt Henry will no longer be joining the Club for the first seven County Championship matches of 2020," the club said in a statement.
Henry was due to join Kent - for whom he starred in 2018 - for seven County Championship games at the start of the season, but with all professional cricket cancelled in the UK until May 28 at the earliest, it became clear that he would be unable to play for the club.
The New Zealand pacer had a highly productive stint with the club in 2018, clinching 75 wickets from 11 matches to help the side win promotion to the first division of the Championship.
Henry becomes the fourth player – after Nathon Lyon (Hampshire), Cheteshwar Pujara (Gloucestershire) and Michael Neser (Surrey) - to miss out on a stint in county cricket due to the virus.
Paul Downton, Kent's director of cricket, said: "Once the decision was announced by the ECB that there would be no cricket until at least the end of May it became inevitable the Matt would not be returning to Kent this season."
"The club continues to enjoy a good relationship with Matt. He has many friends here and the overwhelmingly positive feedback we received when we announced that he would return in 2020 is a measure of Matt himself: he's a fantastic person on and off the cricket field," he added.
With the coronavirus pandemic putting a spanner across all works of life, the entire sporting calendar has also come to a grinding halt. The 13th edition of the Indian Premier League stands suspended and the chances of tournament being held in the near future are also bleak.
