Adelaide sneezes and cricket catches cold

The Covid cluster in Adelaide has sent a shiver through the game of cricket as people scramble for safety and consider the future.

Adelaide Oval under lights is one of the highlights of the Australian summer

They closed Adelaide on Wednesday. Someone’s sneezed and the game has caught a cold shiver.

They couldn’t cancel the Adelaide Test could they?

Bags are packed, flights are booked, the Indians are ready to play the first Test under lights at one of the world’s most beautiful cricket grounds.

Adelaide is sacred. Melbourne’s got gravity, Sydney’s got glam, the rest hover around the edges. Perth gave up its tradition by transitioning, the Gabba’s a likeable lad, but Adelaide is quintessential cricket. It’s the hill no matter how diminished, the members marquees no matter how old money. It’s the outdoor restaurants in the evening, the bars in the morning, the cathedral in the corner and the scoreboard in our memory.

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We all know the answer to that earlier question. The dominant sentiment in planning is for the Adelaide Test to go ahead on December 17. There will be no early calls but anything is possible, the unthinkable is thinkable. If the MCG can stand forlorn and empty on grand final day then nothing is sacred and the unbearable can be borne.

In every consideration for the summer the Adelaide Test held its place unchallenged. In some it had a twin event should the virus render it necessary they play two in the town where the virus had been lulled into submission by wide streets and empty spaces.

Today there are all manner of contingencies. Melbourne’s been mentioned as possibly inheriting an extra Test, Sydney too. Canberra is a chance. Tasmania is trying, but not as trying as some. Perth is back in the picture.

Melbourne Cricket Club boss Stuart Fox, who knows how it feels to have the vultures circle after losing the AFL grand final, was keen to play a decorous line this week, saying he had not picked up the phone but the game knows they are standing by if called.

Melbourne was never so low as when the MCG lay dormant while Geelong and Richmond played out the biggest game of the year in Queensland.

The butterfly effect is at play here because everything is interconnected.

The MCG attempted to conduct a test event on Tuesday in an attempt to rid itself of the mothball smell from the winter hibernation but that had to be cancelled because players who would have competed were in isolation because they’d been in Adelaide last week.

Matthew Wade was cooling his heels at home in Hobart with the wife and kids after a nice little warm-up in the Shield and was to fly to Sydney on Sunday to join the ODI squad.

Instead he finds himself in the team hotel in Sydney’s eastern suburbs with Cameron Green who has flown in from Perth and Marnus Labuschagne who ducked down early from Brisbane.

Across town in western Sydney the Indian team and the superstars of the Australian set-up are in a post IPL quarantine at Olympic Park. The teams are two floors apart in a hotel.

One side is driven 30 minutes to a ground to train for four hours a day. Everything is disinfected then the other side has its turn confident no blade of grass carries a hint of virus.

Players who share the bus and training facilities are then restricted to their rooms until they gather for the bus again the following day.

One thing you have to concede to Virat Kohli’s Indians is that they arrive full of confidence. How else to read the easy acceptance of a tour which begins with a pink ball in conditions that clearly favour the home side?

Australia has a 100 per cent winning record with the pink ball at home. The team has played seven and won seven, five of them in Adelaide. India played its first day-night Test 12 months back, a desultory affair which saw them beat Bangladesh.

Kane Richardson pulled out of the limited overs squad because this stuff is just too hard when a new baby has arrived. Andrew Tye has come in.

“It was a difficult decision for Kane to make but one which has the complete support of the selectors and the entire playing squad,” national selector Trevor Hohns said.

“Kane wanted to remain in Adelaide with Nyki and their newborn son. We will always support our players and their families; even more so given the challenging environment we are in.

“We will miss what he brings to the team but completely understand and support his decision.”

By yesterday they had flown every cricketer they could out of Adelaide and moved many who were there for the Shield out of WA, Queensland and Tasmania.

The Australian A squad were on standby but have been told to stand down for now.