Suddenly, the game has received a big boost during the time of pandemic. During the initial days of the pandemic, it was difficult to envisage cricket being played anywhere. England started the trend helped to a large extent by West Indies and Pakistan. What started as a small trickle has snowballed into a big wave and now we see tours throughout the globe. Cricket is alive and kicking.
Credit must be given to ECB
World cricket certainly vows a great debt of gratitude to the England Cricket Board. It was the ECB who had the courage to stage a test series in the middle of the pandemic. They went out of their way to convince the UK government to allow West Indies and Pakistan to tour England. It was because of the ECB’s efforts that cricket found a new life. It is another matter that ECB stood to lose more than 300 million pounds if the tours had failed to go ahead but credit must be given where credit is due. We must also note that most lucrative and successful league, Indian Premier League was postponed at that time. Ultimately, it was moved to Dubai.
The fact that England were able to host successive series sort of emboldened other nations and a template was formed by all the nations. Chartered flights for the entire squad, mandatory quarantine of 14 days, bio-secure bubble, less or no interaction with anyone outside of the team squad, saliva not to be used on the balls to shine etc. Now, every nation that hosts another nation is following this procedure. This is expected to continue well into 2021 until there is a definite decline in the pandemic across the world.
The ECB’s staging of a couple of series was so successful that Australia found it prudent and safe to send their team across to England for just a few ODIs. Australia are relatively unscathed by this pandemic and to send their team over to England who was among the worst affected countries takes lots of courage. Australia too must be appreciated for starting the trickle.
Enter IPL
There was a lull post these series and it was left to the Indian board to carry on with the torch. They managed to stage a successful IPL albeit in Dubai. The tournament started with a hiccup in that some players were tested positive but later on it proceeded without any hitch. This tournament was by far the longest the players would have been inside the bubble. It went on for more than 2 months and that is a very longtime.
Series everywhere
Suddenly, there are tours going on everywhere. We have India travelling to Australia for a complete series. Pakistan & West Indies in New Zealand. Sri Lanka went to South Africa. Now, England are in Sri Lanka and will travel to India in 3 weeks. Australia will meet South Africa. So it is back to the good old days but without spectators. Only in Australia were spectators allowed to watch the game and eventhen it wasn’t full capacity. Nonetheless, games are being played across the globe. The host nation does not stand to lose much because of the empty stands. They will be able recoup from broadcasting rights and advertisements in the stadiums and on TV.
Let us hope that this pandemic is on the way out and that in 2021, all of us can watch the games sitting and cheering from the stadium rather than watching them on TV.
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