Hong Kong, Apr 1 (IANS): Cricket Hong Kong on Wednesday announced that it is suspending all league matches this weekend to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

"As a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, Cricket Hong Kong have decided to abandoned all League Cricket this weekend until further notice," Cricket Hong Kong tweeted.

The cricket calendar has come to a standstill due to the coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly 40,000 people around the world. Among the major international series that have been indefinitely postponed are New Zealand's ODI series in Australia -- the first match of which was played behing closed doors at the Sydney Cricket Ground -- South Africa's ODI series in India, England's tour of Sri Lanka and the final leg of Bangladesh's tour of Pakistan.

The Pakistan Super League (PSL) and the Indian Premier League (IPL) were both postponed. While the PSL was already underway when the pandemic started causing a global crisis, the IPL had to be eventually postponed from its initial start date of March 29 to April 15.

It is unclear as to whether it can start on the new date due to the three-week lockdown in India and major tournaments later in the year including the T20 World Cup is under a cloud of doubt.