The 12 cricket festivals (Under 10s-14s) scheduled at King’s College, Taunton between July 14 and August 21 have all been cancelled due to coronavirus.

With the coronavirus and social distancing measures set to remain in place for the next few months, the decision was taken to cancel the series of youth festivals, which has been running for 37 years and spent the last 26 year at the ground in Taunton.

Festival organiser Malcolm Broad said in a statement that trying to organise the festival with fewer teams attending had been considered, but it was still deemed to be too risky.

Cornwall was set to enter teams in the under-11, under-12, under-13 and under-14 festivals, with the earliest being the under-14s from July 26 to July 31.

In a statement, festival organiser Malcolm Broad said: "We have spent a lot of time in the last few weeks considering whether or not it will possible to hold the Festivals this coming summer. When initially the government banned school trips and subsequently imposed the lockdown, we were still optimistic that the Festivals would be able to go ahead from mid-July and into August.

"However it has recently become clear that the virus will remain endemic in this country, at least for the next few months, and that social distancing will apply to our daily lives throughout this period. With all this in mind, we have sadly taken the decision to cancel the festivals for this summer.

"The risks of propagating an infection when bringing together teams from all over this country and also from overseas are substantial, and given that we have a duty of care to all the young players, the many officials and the parents and supporters, we do not feel that it would be safe to proceed.

"We have even looked at trying to organise the festival with fewer teams attending but even this has far too many risks. We also felt that we cannot delay the decision any longer in order to be fair to everyone involved.

"After 26 continuous years at Kings and 37 years in total, this has been a very difficult decision and one we have taken with the utmost reluctance.

"I do hope that you will consider entering in 2021 and I will be in touch later in the year.”