How England Cricket warned cricket fraternity about a world threat
'When the going gets tough, the tough get going' - A popular American saying that defines England cricket best. The England and Wales Cricket Board have been royal and tough all along, building and reinventing themselves to survive and to reach the glory that has always been their quest.
The Queen’s men, the royalty, have been a step ahead of other warriors of the same legend. From an embarrassing exit in the 2015 World Cup to lifting the big Trophy in 2019, England know what it takes to make it all right/and they end up alright. And now, it’s just a new chapter and unknown set of challenges that await the world. Yes, the coronavirus-induced pandemic is everything that the world is talking about right now.
The world was still unaware of the threat of the said virus after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared it as Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020. Only a minimal fraction of the people even heard the name after the WHO coined the virus as the Coronavirus of the Covid-19, on February 11. Well, back then, at least the cricket fans were unaware. Well, I can attest that our entire clan was engrossed into the Big Bash League, England and Australia’s tour of South Africa, and India’s long tour of New Zealand. Yeah, we fans are like that. Cricket is our entire world and it’s exactly a week now with all sport being banned, with the Pakistan Super League as the last man down.
But between India long run in New Zealand and the knockout stage of the PSL being called off, the world had turned upside down. When we take a rewind, we see that the major boards had one by one taken a big step towards controlling the pandemic. And while tracing our footsteps, we figure out that ECB were the first to acknowledge the coronavirus threat.
I still remember that day at work when it struck us that the world is on the verge of facing, and eventually fighting, a pandemic we weren’t ready for. It was a March 3 and England captain Joe Root, on his team’s departure to Sri Lanka, announced that the team won’t be doing any handshakes with each other and the hosts. Instead, they’d be resorting to the “well-established fist bump” on tour. The team had completed a tour of South Africa in the previous month and a wave of illness, unrelated to the coronavirus, had taken their players down. Root made it a point that handy measures were taken this time avoid any germs.
"We are not shaking hands with each other, using instead the well-established fist bump, and we are washing hands regularly and wiping down surfaces using the anti-bacterial wipes and gels we've been given in our immunity packs,” Root told the media.
"There is no suggestion that the tour will be affected, but of course it is an evolving situation so we are in regular contact with the authorities and will proceed as advised, but at this stage we fully expect the tour to continue as planned."
My team at work and I were absolutely shocked at the discovery and that’s when, ladies and gentlemen, we the cricket fans learned about the coronavirus being a major threat. Following that England did stay in Sri Lanka for over a week and played a couple of tour games. Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand played the first ODI closed doors with empty stands. On March 11, the threat was once again re-established as the ECB released a statement that team will refrain from taking selfies with fans and limit public engagements while in Sri Lanka and urged "all supporters joining the tour to maintain good levels of hygiene" as advised by the World Health Organisation Britain's National Health Service to avoid possible infection and spreading of illness.
"Following the world health agency's advice, and in order to protect the players and, in turn, the integrity and continuation of the Sri Lanka Test tour, the team has put in place several precautions, leading to a number of normal activities being cancelled for the foreseeable future," the statement said.
"England players and staff have been asked to avoid any unnecessary public engagements, and temporarily avoid casual supporter interaction such as selfies or autographs. Whilst we acknowledge that this will be disappointing for some supporters, we stress that this a measure to protect the ongoing wellbeing of the England Test squad and is a decision which has not been taken lightly."
But in the earlier hours of March 13, England called its players in Pakistan back to the UK and then called off the series with Sri Lanka. Players flew out, back to their base, as soon as they could. The hosts, the Sri Lankan board had to agree to the visitors' decision. Later on that day, South Africa’s tour of India and the remainder of New Zealand’s tour of Australia was called off as well.
Today, the world stands at a position wherein all community cricket has been stopped by the respective boards. And yes, there’s concern and dilemma all around the world with respect to the major tournaments that were completely planned out. After the PSL was cancelled, the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) are on crossroads about the proceedings of the thirteenth edition of the IPL, which was originally supposed to start on March 29 and now has been pushed to April 15. The ECB, too, are struggling to find out a way to pull off a curtailed season.
So far, there haven’t been any such cases of coronavirus in England cricket. Yes, six Surrey players self isolated themselves and Alex Hales was reportedly tested in Pakistan but no positive cases have come out yet. And yes, the ECB are still prioritising The Hundred and the Vitality T20 Blast over the County Championship, taking a leaf out of their own book. Well, it’s absolutely evident that the World Champions have their eyes set on the T20 World Cup, scheduled to be held in October, despite the threat that’s engulfing the world. Whether or not it finally happens, they know what they’re doing, aren’t they?
