Ashes 2021-22: Fears rise for England tour of Australia after India refuse to play at Old Trafford
Players are exhausted and countries are increasingly wary of committing to long tours, especially to somewhere that’s more reactive, restrictive and risk averse than just about anywhere else.
Cricket
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Australia skipper Tim Paine claims he’d quarantine for a year to play an Ashes. He probably would, but the sad and shambolic scenes at Old Trafford are an ominous development and England’s cricket chiefs are sounding less confident than they once were.
Australians, starved of cricket and relevance, are desperate to play, but few share their enthusiasm.
Having endured quarantines and lockdowns for two years, the northern hemisphere has found some freedoms - who, having a taste of that, would fancy the prospect of three months a country whose vaccination bungle has left it quarantined and lagging behind the rest of the world?
England’s cricket chief, Tom Harrison, could only offer luke-warm confidence the Ashes will not be postponed.
“We are due to play across large parts of Australia where the rules are different and they could change very quickly,” he said.
“We are working with Cricket Australia and we have huge sympathy with the Australian government.
“No one is being unreasonable here, I suspect a postponement is off the table. The Ashes is a massive deal. That’s probably not where we are going to end up.”
England experimented with a more liberal approach in its summer, but even that was too much for some — Ben Stokes, indomitable in the battle, could not endure another series even with some freedoms.
The decision to call off the India series, just like the decision by England to call off the series in South Africa, indicates just how fragile mindsets are and just how reluctant players will be to endure restrictions in Australia this summer.
It also highlights how much player power is influencing decision making - as it should to some degree.
On the bright side the postponement-cum-cancellation-cum-forfeit of the fifth Test at least allows the English some relief from a schedule which has bordered on the inhumane.
There is little else in the whole sorry business to bring comfort to anyone.
For one, the IPL has again asserted its unquestioned primacy in cricket’s calendar, if not cricketer’s priorities.
The BCCI had asked for the last Test to be removed once it had rescheduled the IPL to begin four days from the scheduled conclusion at Old Trafford.
The ECB refused and India reluctantly accepted that reality until its senior players rang with concerns on the eve of the fifth Test.
Cancelling the Test was a big call, but the upside for the IPL made it an easier one. Some franchises sent private planes to airlift players out of England with haste that bordered on the obscene.
It is, however, too simplistic and convenient to hang this all on that elephant in the cricket space - caparisoned and capricious thought it may be.
There is a mob with sharpened sticks hunting for somebody to blame, as there must be in such times. A bat, a limousine driver, a secretive laboratory, the international banking cartel, interstate truck drivers … .
Fingers have been pointed at Ravi Shastri for holding a book launch at a hotel on the eve of the Test and a few days before he and his assistants fell ill with the virus.
It is a little difficult for England to point fingers when its chief executive officer was in attendance. As was Indian captain Virat Kohli and others from the camp.
England was also guilty of allowing the same ground invader to compromise protocols on three occasions but indicated the event was not out of order.
Harrison explained that England cricket had run an experiment this summer, easing biosecurity restrictions in recognition that players would not be able to endure another round.
“The position we have had is for people to make decisions on what they think they are able to do or not,” he said.
“It’s not for ECB to say, in the context of trying to let people live more freely, we’re not influencing how they live their lives in the constraints of those living standards. That’s not how we operate.”
The liberal approach resulted in the Indian side being without coaches, physios and doctors in the last Test because of the virus. The players may have limped through, but their worn physical state was more than matched by their fragile mental state.
Players with families on tour had spent the eve of the Test fretting that they would had contracted the virus from staff and would test positive in the coming days.
A recently imposed six-day quarantine ahead of the IPL cannot have helped.
Imagine how 14 days quarantine on arrival in Australia sits with English players and their families.
Having bailed out of a South African tour, England cannot get upset at India doing the same to it.
Indian players have spent 60 days locked in their hotel room since late last year. Solitary confinement with extra pillows is still solitary confinement.
The leg irons were causing blisters on Ravi Shastri’s men last summer here in Australia where their anxiety at the thought of travelling to Sydney and Brisbane and enduring additional restrictions almost derailed the series.
And this is the thing that should worry every cricket fan and official in this country.
England, exhausted from 20 Tests in less than two years — is in that Indian mindset even before they’ve endured the first quarantine of the summer.
Senior English players will be sick at the thought of volunteering to come to a country more reactive, restrictive and risk averse than just about any on the planet - a country a long way from family and home in Christmas.
An ordinary Ashes series is hard work but the benefits of being in Australia with family or loved ones over Christmas is generally appealing, this summer it could not be less so.
There will be players willing to volunteer, but warnings that the senior players will not come which were sounded months ago are now very much a reality.
The armchair cynics will dismiss concerns about players states of mind but it was instructive to that Jonny Bairstow, Chris Woakes and David Malan announced in recent days they were too exhausted to go to the IPL. Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes had made the call earlier.
The decision to turn down all that money gives some indication of the motivations at hand and the problems ahead.
Inside story: Who is to blame for India-England Test debacle
Elizabeth Ammon, The Times
It should have been an enthralling final Test to cap off a gripping series, but the first sign that something was not right came on Thursday morning (all times are UK time).
News of a further Covid case in the Indian camp broke just after 11am with the assistant physiotherapist Yogesh Parmar soon named as the man who had tested positive.
There could scarcely have been a worse person to come down with the virus. In the absence of the main physiotherapist, Nitin Patel, who was isolating, Parmar had been in close contact with several members of the Indian side coming to the end of a long tour.
It was the fourth positive test in the camp within a matter of days after Ravi Shastri, the head coach, began to isolate on Sunday, the penultimate day of the Oval Test, which India had won to take a 2-1 lead in the series. The bowling coach Bharat Arun and fielding coach Ramakrishnan Sridhar tested positive in an outbreak many believe began in a packed launch in London for Shastri’s new book last week.
India cancelled the voluntary training session they had planned for Thursday and told the players to stay in their hotel rooms at the Radisson until they had received the results of PCR tests.
Under rules set by the ICC, all teams have to do media appearances on the day before a match, but that too was cancelled. There was no word from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) throughout the day. The PCR tests on the players came back negative shortly after 6pm on Thursday and an ECB spokesman said the Test match would go ahead.
As the evening wore on whispers began to emerge that some senior Indian players had reservations about playing and had been in discussions among themselves. Close to midnight, players led by the captain Virat Kohli sent an email to Jay Shah, honorary secretary of the BCCI, and other officials including Sourav Ganguly, the former captain and president of the board.
In the email, the players outlined their concerns and stated they were not prepared to play the match because they were not mentally in the right state to do so and that they were worried about the risk of further spread of the virus.
Emergency discussions between Tom Harrison, the ECB’s chief executive, and BCCI officials began late on Thursday and carried on throughout the night. ECB officials, including the medical officer Nick Peirce and Steve Elworthy, the ECB director of special projects, proposed a number of options including further testing of the players, which they hoped might allow the match to be postponed by 24 hours rather than cancelled.
With no breakthrough forthcoming, England’s players were called by Phil Davies, the ECB’s Covid officer, at about 7am yesterday (Friday) to say that the first day of the match had been postponed and they should stay at their hotel, The Lowry in Manchester.
At this stage, the ECB was still optimistic that the match would go ahead from Saturday to Wednesday, but by 8am no compromise had been found and the BCCI and Indian teams would not accept it. Reluctantly, the ECB agreed to the cancellation.
Confirmation of the cancellation came through at 8.44am and with it the start of the briefing war between the two boards. The ECB’s initial statement said that the match had been cancelled “due to fears of a further increase in the number of Covid cases inside the camp and India are regrettably unable to field a team” and went on to say that India had “forfeited” the match.
That crucial word was removed within minutes because of the row between the ECB and the BCCI over who bore responsibility for the cancellation and the knock-on effects for what could be recouped in insurance.
Just over an hour later, India put out their first official communication for almost 24 hours. In the hope of ending talk of them having forfeited the match, they raised for the first time the prospect of playing a rearranged game.
The Indian touring party remained at their hotel in Manchester while the England players returned to Old Trafford in separate cars to retrieve their kit bags from the changing rooms before driving home.
Spectators in corporate boxes were allowed in until 2pm and some fans who had turned up at the ground were permitted to enter Old Trafford as the bars tried to get rid of the gallons of surplus beer on site at a rate of pounds 1 a pint.
After some confusion over what Harrison had meant when speaking on BBC radio and Sky Sports, a hastily arranged media briefing took place early in the afternoon in which the ECB stated that the match was “not cancelled because of Covid” but because of “mental-health concerns”. The board reiterated that the result of the match and the series had yet to be decided and that it would be for the ICC to adjudicate.
India’s players were due to leave the UK on Wednesday to join up with their Indian Premier League franchise teams before the rearranged tournament restarting on September 19 in the United Arab Emirates but after the Test was called off new flights were arranged and all of India’s touring party, apart from those in isolation because of Covid, are expected to leave the UK today (Saturday).
This article originally appeared in The Times
VAX PASSPORT MAY BE ASHES REALITY
Peter Lalor and Robert Craddock
Cricket fans may need vaccine passports to attend this summer’s Ashes as governments and authorities explore allowing crowds to attend the celebrated event.
If the regulations come in it will be the first sport to demand proof of health status.
Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley said his organisation was exploring the need for cricket fans to present passports, though the ultimate call would be made by governments.
“It is being raised, that’s something that is increasingly rising up the agenda and we will work with the venues and with the state governments, but I think those discussions are going to come over the coming months,” he said.
“At the moment everyone is concentrating on getting vaccinated as quickly as possible.
“We are working with jurisdictions around the country but I am confident we will have crowds, just look at England and look at vaccination rates, whether it is the Euros or Wimbledon or this current (Test) series against India played in front of full crowds.
“I would just encourage everyone to get vaccinated as quickly as possible but we remain confident and optimistic we will have crowds in the summer.”
Euro 2020 took place at eleven venues across Europe with different countries imposing different crowd restrictions. Proof of negative test was required in some, but those who had passport proof of double vaccine did not need to show proof of a test at Wembley.
England’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson allowed full crowds at sporting events from July following a successful vaccination program which began in July.
The latest figures show that 43.5m (65%) in the UK have received both vaccinations and 48.3m have had the first with that country’s roll out program well advanced.
In Australia just 7.9 million have received both doses (31%) and 13.1 million the first with the government scrambling to borrow vaccines to boost rates.
Harsh government quarantine restrictions are causing concern in England with senior players allegedly threatening not to come if the government does not co-operate with them and their families.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan has suggested postponing the series if the side is weakened.
Cancelling or postponing an Ashes would have a catastrophic effect on Australian cricket finances with Hockley admitting the series was worth hundreds of millions.
Hockley was sympathetic to the plight of England’s weary cricketers who have played 20 Tests since the start of 2020 while Australia has played just five – and all at home.
“There’s been a lot talked about with families, England have played more international cricket than anyone else, they have spent longer than anyone else in bubbles,” he said.
“When you add a T20 World Cup into an Ashes it is a long time away from home so I have got a lot of huge degree of empathy as to why they would want their families to join them.
“We worked constructively with governments last year with India for families to accompany those that wanted and we will look to do the same this summer.”
Hockley and cricket have a number of looming issues with a Test against Afghanistan in Hobart subject to debate since the Taliban take over and noises from England about senior players boycotting the Ashes because of the harsh quarantine restrictions and capricious nature of their application.
Hockley admitted the scenario was a difficult one but one they had faced last year with India.
“The work we are doing at the moment is to ensure we provide optimum conditions for both sides and all the support staff and families that want to accompany them,” he said.
“ECB want to bring out the strongest side. The work we are doing at the moment is to give them the most clarity about what it is going to look like but we are working in partnership with the ECB.”
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