False alarm: the tour called off when nobody had Covid
Feelings of gratitude for England’s arrival in South Africa turned to frustration and disappointment when the tour was called off despite no one within the England party testing positive for coronavirus.
When players from West Indies and Pakistan left England in the summer, having come in an hour of need at the height of the pandemic, they did so with gratitude trailing in their wake. When England leave South Africa on Thursday, that will not quite be the sentiment: although welcomed warmly as the first team to play international cricket here since Covid-19 struck, local feeling is one of frustration and disappointment that the tour was not able to be completed.
That impression was not diminished when the second round of PCR test results were all negative, meaning that no one within the England party has tested positive. That was the suspicion all along, from the moment the first tests — believed to be of one player and one member of the backroom staff — returned results of which the medics were highly sceptical. Those doubts were confirmed by the rapid testing that followed almost immediately.
After further testing and analysis by independent virologists in Cape Town and London, those tests were confirmed as false positives at about 12.30pm local time on Tuesday, an hour and a half before the rescheduled second ODI had been due to start at Newlands.
Instead, England’s cricketers remained at The Vineyard hotel, while South Africa’s had already dispersed. While there was frustration at the postponement of the series, there was also huge relief with the confirmation of the test results that England’s party is a healthy one.
It means that the two individuals pose no further risk to the rest and were allowed to stop self-isolating. They can now fly home on Thursday with the rest of the squad, instead of having to self-isolate in South Africa until Tuesday, while those flying to Australia for the Big Bash League were awaiting another round of tests before they could travel to Australia for 14 days in quarantine.
These false positives have proved costly. Afterwards there was a growing collective anxiety among the England players, who feared the consequences if the integrity of the hotel bubble had been shattered. They feared a spread of Covid-19 within the group, with the consequences for self-isolation in South Africa that could follow. Given the small window of family time for some of these players — a break of only two weeks for some — that was an understandable anxiety.
There was little appetite among them to countenance playing the final leg of the tour, matches that count as part of the qualification for the World Cup in India in 2023, and they made their feelings known. Quite when the schedule will allow for these three matches to be reorganised is anyone’s guess, but if space can be found then there will be no effect on broadcast income, either, for South Africa.
Once the players signalled that they were in no frame of mind to play, it was left to senior voices, such as Eoin Morgan and Joe Root, to land the deal. While they are captains of separate teams, Morgan and Root often operate together, combining their authority. They were co-authors, as it were, of the revamp of England’s cultural revolution after the Bristol fracas in 2017 and they were key voices in this. Ashley Giles then relayed matters to Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive, who was back in England.
Quite what would have happened had Harrison insisted England fulfil the fixtures is not hard to guess. The ECB has always made it known that the wellbeing of the players is paramount and it has always allowed players an opt-out on security grounds - the definition of security in this instance being that of the biobubble - something of which Morgan availed himself when he pulled out of a tour to Bangladesh in 2016.
Shaun Botterill/Getty ImagesMorgan, left, and Root were the key voices from the squad as England players signalled their unwillingness to fulfil the fixtures in South Africa
The fundamental point is that players, buttressed by plentiful opportunities outside of international cricket, and with support from player unions that are far more powerful and assertive than in years gone by, hold most of the cards. In a time of a pandemic involving a potentially killer virus, and with mental health and wellbeing at the forefront of any conversation, it would have been a brave chief executive to challenge his players. Harrison was not about to do so.
He was on the back foot with his opposite number at Cricket South Africa, Kugandrie Govender, the acting chief executive. An agreement was struck, a conciliatory tone negotiated, and England have agreed to pick up some of the extra costs of any rescheduled trip. Neither party was keen for the relationship to be damaged, especially so South Africa, given the challenges they face to maintain their status as a cricketing superpower.
It is South Africa who will feel the brunt of the decision, though. There has been reputational damage to their ability to stage cricket, which will still be a necessity throughout their home season, until global vaccines take effect. Sri Lanka are due here, as are Pakistan and Australia and, no doubt, they will be keen for the hosts to up the ante where the integrity of any biosecure bubbles is concerned.
For England, there was relief above all that two tests proved negative, that their players’ health has not been compromised and that the final chapter of this troubled tour is almost done.
THE TIMES
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