Written by Joe Man. Edited by Joe Murphy.
A sad end! England vs India 2021 was an enthralling contest that ended in a way none of us expected. The game first became in doubt Thursday morning when it emerged India’s assistant physio Yogesh Parmar had tested positive for coronavirus. All the Indian team immediately quarantined in their rooms while they were tested. This is where things began to get bizarre. The entire team’s results came back negative, and it seemed it was game on! However, at midnight the Indian board were sent letters by 4 senior players saying that the team were not willing to play, citing concern over the disease spreading throughout the team.
There seems to be more to this story than just this match. It appears a number of players were concerned about the outbreak preventing them from travelling and performing in the Indian premiere league due to restart September 19. All this really boils down to one thing:
“Cricket is in crisis!”
COVID-19 has been extremely hard on sportsman as they live in a never ending world of quarantine and bubbles. Some players have done between 6-10 quarantines in a year! Players have spoken about mental health, and more and more high profile players are withdrawing. David Malan, Johnny Bairstow and Chris Woakes have become the latest to pull out of the Indian Premier League, to avoid more time locked in hotel rooms.
With the Cricket World Cup and Ashes series just around the corner, players and now having to choose what means most to them. T20 franchise cricket is where the money is, so it’s not surprising to see players putting that as their priority. It does beg the question though, where does this leave test cricket? At this stage, no one knows what will be the result of the England V India Series.
Initially it appeared that India had forfeited, which would have meant a drawn series 2-2. Quickly, it was changed to being treated as abandoned. This means that at some time in the future, an effort will be made to re-schedule the game. This will not happen for some time, though, as schedules are tight, and the next English summer is the most likely outcome. It’s all a bit of a farce in truth.
Talk about the Ashes is not going much better. There are already rumours circulating that several English players will not go if their families are not allowed to join them. As someone living in Australia myself, I can tell you that is not likely to happen. Australia has its borders slammed very tightly shut and exemptions have been met with anger by the Australian public who cannot get their own families home. Both the Australian and English boards will do everything they can to make the Ashes happen, but it is a tricky situation. England will have to juggle the mental health of their players and an increasing list of ‘unavailable’ players.
Australia have problems of their own with a severe lack of cricket. Their T20 preparations have been a disaster, going down to the West Indies and Bangladesh, albeit with an admittedly second string line up. Once again, a lot of senior players refused to go after the Indian premier league lockdowns. Their test team has only one warm up test against Afghanistan, which now looks likely to be abandoned due to the political situation in that country at this time. It’s starting to feel that something needs to be done about the workload on players. Is it time players need to commit to either country or franchise cricket? If so, where does this leave the future of the international element of the sport?
At the moment, it doesn’t work for either. Players are not prioritising playing for their countries, with the lure of the money too high. The T20 leagues also can be really enjoyable but halfway through an international tournament starts and all the big draw players are gone, leaving the tournament finals a farce. These are indeed challenging times in the world of sport.
Decisions will be made on the Ashes shortly, but with many states in Australia locked down, it’s going to be extremely difficult to know what the schedule will look like. If all goes ahead as planned, it will be a very interesting series indeed!
WHEEL2WHEEL REPORTS 