Ashes 2021-22: Cricket in a tricky place as tours around the world continue to tumble like wickets
England has come under fire for cancelling a white-ball tour next month as they weigh up how they’ll make it to Australia for this summer’s Ashes.
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Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ramiz Raja said on Tuesday he felt “used and then binned” after England cancelled a white-ball tour for their men’s and women’s teams next month.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) cited “increasing concerns about travelling to the region” just days after New Zealand also pulled out of a tour to Pakistan over security concerns.
However, the British High Commissioner to Pakistan, Christian Turner, confirmed the decision was taken by the ECB on the grounds of player welfare.
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The first trip by the England men’s side to Pakistan since 2005 was only meant to last four days with two Twenty20 matches in Rawalpindi on October 13 and 14.
Two women’s T20 matches were scheduled on the same days as double-headers with three women’s one-day internationals to follow in the same city.
Reaction to the withdrawal in Pakistan has been furious.
Pakistan travelled to England last year at a time when Covid-19 infection rates in Britain were among the highest in the world for a three-match Test and T20 series that saved the ECB millions in television rights deals.
“It’s the feeling of being used and then binned. That’s the feeling I have right now,” Raja told reporters.
“A little bit of hand-holding, a little bit of caring was needed after the New Zealand pull out and we didn’t get that from England which is so frustrating.
“We’ve been going out of our way to meet the international demands, being such a responsible member of the cricketing fraternity, and in return we get a response from ECB saying the players were spooked by New Zealand’s withdrawal. What does that mean?”
New Zealand officials refused to give details of the security threat that forced them to abruptly cancel their matches.
A deadly 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore saw Pakistan become a no-go destination for international teams.
In 2012 and 2015 Pakistan hosted England in the UAE, which has staged most of their “home” games since the attack.
A rapid improvement in security in recent years has led to the return of international cricket, with Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, the West Indies, South Africa and Bangladesh touring in the past six years.
“I share the deep sadness of cricket fans that England will not tour Pakistan in October,” Turner said in a video post on Twitter.
"I share the deep sadness of cricket fans that England will not tour Pakistan in October," says British High Commissioner to Pakistan Christian Turner#PAKvENGpic.twitter.com/opUPFkog9h
— Cricket Pakistan (@cricketpakcompk) September 21, 2021
“This was a decision made by the ECB, which is independent of the British government, based on concerns for player welfare.
“The British High Commission supported the tour; did not advise against it on security grounds; and our travel advice for Pakistan has not changed.” The series was supposed to be part of the preparation for England’s men ahead of next month’s T20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
But many of their star players would now be free to play in the latter stages of the lucrative Indian Premier League, also being hosted in the UAE, should their sides reach the knockout phase.
“You are quoting fatigue and mental tension and players being spooked and a hour-and-a-half flight from here before a World Cup they are quite happy to be caged in a bubble environment and carry on with the tournament,” added Raja.
“One feels slighted, one feels humiliated because withdrawal doesn’t have an answer.”
Cancel culture: Not playing cricket the new norm
By Peter Lalor, Robert Craddock
In the space of a few days New Zealand abandoned a tour of Pakistan and England refused to embark on one to the same neglected cricket destination.
This development comes hot on the heels of India’s decision to hoof it and abandon the fifth Test against England in Manchester.
News the Taliban has replaced the Afghanistan board’s executive director with the nephew of a government leader fills nobody with confidence about its future fixtures. The Taliban has reportedly also blocked the IPL from being broadcast there because its fireworks and dancing girls are an affront to the fundamentalists.
Things are in such an agitated state ahead of Afghanistan’s first Australian Test match this November it will be a shock if it does go ahead.
Cricket is afflicted with cancel culture.
Not playing is the new norm, not that there is anything new in these recent developments, more a confirmation that things are possibly getting worse not better.
Before Christmas England fled South Africa. After Christmas Australia refused to go to South Africa. In between times India caused Australian administrators peptic ulcers with its reluctance to play the third and fourth Tests of the Border Gavaskar trophy.
The Australian domestic summer of 2021-22 is stuck in the starting blocks as plans are made, changed, made again and changed again. State pandemic politics have rendered the Sheffield Shield, Marsh Cups, WNCL’s and the like almost impossible to plan.
NSW and Victoria are the leper states. Western Australia a forbidden land. Queensland so skittish its government almost wrecked the 2020-21 Border Gavaskar trophy before it began.
The past two years are full of series aborted or abandoned. There’s a warehouse full of merchandise for the 2020 T20 World Cup that never eventuated in Australia. Even the IPL was postponed and then suspended.
Cricket got its first taste of that when New Zealand scurried home as the pandemic hit Australia in March 2020 after one match at an empty SCG.
How innocent those times seem. How desperate these by comparison. Cricket is facing an existential crisis. Covid and politics have brought the exhausted game to its knees.
If the past and present provide any indication of the future then the Ashes is an uncertain event. Even if England arrive — that is no certainty — fans arriving at grounds cannot be guaranteed they will see any play.
India pulled out of the Old Trafford Test match on the morning of the game.
New Zealand pulled out of the Pakistan series on the morning of the first ODI.
By the time news had filtered through fans had travelled to venues expecting to see the game unfold before them.
International cricket teams — Australia excluded — are jet lagged travellers forced into a life on the road, pushing through fog in airports they can’t name headed for destinations they can’t remember. The game is being lost in transit.
It’s not just teams. It’s players too. Despite playing a fraction of the international cricket other Test nations have in the past two years — not one Test match overseas — at least half a dozen Australians pulled out of the recent white ball series in West Indies and Bangladesh.
Ben Stokes pulled out of the India series, senior teammates are threatening to do the same come Ashes time.
You know things are getting real when players pull out of the IPL — as a number have.
There is no comment so naive as the one which maintains politics has no place in sport. Sport and politics cannot be separated whether it is an issue of government quarantine restrictions and closed state borders in Australia, quotas in South Africa, the Taliban in Afghanistan, security in Pakistan, farmers protests in India, India and Pakistan’s historical enmity, institutional racism, fundamental sexism … the list goes on.
For Pakistan, who are just getting cricket started in the country again, the decision by England to withdraw so soon after New Zealand left was heart breaking, financially crippling and infuriating. Australia, who is the most timid of touring nations, must now be considered highly unlikely to show up for its return tour in the New Year.
The Kiwis, at least, cited security, the English announced on Tuesday they were staying home because “going ahead will add further pressure to the playing group who have already coped with a long period of operating in restricted Covid environments … we believe that touring under these conditions will not be ideal preparation for the Men’s T20 World Cup”.
New chairman Ramiz Raja — who has to also deal with an Indian blockade — slammed the Anglosphere’s reluctant participants.
“I am severely disappointed in England’s withdrawal but it was expected because this western bloc gets united unfortunately and tries to back each other,” Ramiz said. “So you can take any decision on the basis of security threat and perception. There was a sense of anger because first New Zealand got away without sharing information about the threat they were facing.
“Now, this (England) was expected but this is a lesson for us because we go out of our way to accommodate and pamper these sides when they visit. And when we go there, we undergo strict quarantines and we tolerate their admonishments, but there is a lesson in this. That is, that from now on we will only go as far as is in our interest.
“Our interest is that cricket will not stop in our country and if the cricket fraternity will not take care of each other then there’s no point to it. New Zealand, then England, now we have a West Indies series that can also be hit, and Australia who is already reconsidering. This — England, Australia, New Zealand — is all one block. Who can we complain to? We thought they were our own but they haven’t accepted us as theirs.”
The worst of this pandemic is the proliferation of selfish behaviours it has sparked, the every man for themselves approach and cricket has proven itself to be as guilty of this as any politician, party or person.
England villain’s emotional Ashes plea
Stuart Broad’s declaration he is bound for the Ashes is music for Australian ears but the quality of the support cast remains the major concern over the tour.
Outstanding fast bowler Broad, keen to make the most of a career entering its final years, is the first big name to declare he will be heading to Australia for a five Test summer and England are hoping other players will follow his charismatic lead.
Broad is “100 per cent’’ convinced England will send a side to Australia but could not guarantee there would not be a string of withdrawals due to Covid-induced tensions and protocols.
Australia will simply urge England to keep picking players until they can fill a squad, not the ideal scenario but a necessary one in a series which means more than $200 million to Australian cricket.
Broad pointed out that as he was a 35-year-old with no children and he is not playing in the Indian Premier League. His plight was much different to younger family men in the squad who are fretting over Australia’s two weeks of hard quarantine.
“Because my fiancee Mollie (King) works, I am already resigned to the fact that she cannot be with me at any point – because by the time she has completed two weeks of quarantine she will have to be back on the radio,’’ Broad wrote in his Mail on Sunday column.
“That‘s why I am committed to going. It’s a very different scenario if you are away from the start of the Indian Premier League this weekend or if you have kids.”
England will choose their Ashes squad in a fortnight after players make individual decisions on their availability after viewing the final draft of quarantine restrictions for the tour.
England are reportedly trying to lobby their way to a more relaxed quarantine system than the mandatory two weeks in a hotel room, with perhaps an hour or two allowed out for training and other activities.
If there are no relaxations it seems certain there will be big name withdrawals.
“It is now just a couple of weeks away from a squad being selected but players can‘t sign up to something unless they know what they are signing up for,” said Broad.
“It is 100% clear that an England team of some description will embark on the tour.
“But if another player called me and told me they couldn‘t commit, I would totally accept it.
“My message to our bosses at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is simple: Give us the best possible chance to be mentally strong come January with the environment that is created.
“Let‘s try to make it as comfortable as possible for us because if you go somewhere like Australia and have to bunker down, you won’t enjoy being in one of the greatest places on earth – and aren’t going to win at cricket either.”
Originally published as Ashes 2021-22: Cricket in a tricky place as tours around the world continue to tumble like wickets
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