SCG Test with crowds has only half-hearted appeal

The decision to hold the Test at the SCG has alarmed parts of the game, including team members who may face extra quarantine

Australia celebrate their Test victory against New Zealand at the SCG last summer

Positive tests are down, but there is still widespread amazement and concern about the decision to hold a Test at the SCG next week.

COVID cases blew out the morning after the decision was confirmed, but dropped on Thursday.

Still, the advice from experts is concerning and the effect on the people who play, broadcast and work at the game cause for further concerns.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian defended the decision to proceed with the match as planned.

“If there is an opportunity for us to hold events that are COVID safe we should also proceed on that because at the end of the day, what‘s on the line?” she asked.

The day before NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant had said crowds of up to 19,000 would be fine so long as they obeyed the rules around “screaming and chanting”.

In a pandemic nobody can hear you scream, but there are many voicing concerns about the idea to proceed with the Test.

Federal authorities weren’t too reassuring about the idea with chief health officer Paul Kelly saying he would not take his elderly parents to the ground.

“There (is) vulnerability and so there is risk,” Professor Kelly said.

Members of the Australian cricket team could give the NSW Premier a reason they would have preferred not to play in NSW.

The team – some of whom have been in one form of quarantine or another for over 150 days – has been told it will have to enter an even more strict quarantine for the last two matches.

No more coffees, or outside tables at cafes as they have become accustomed in the first two Tests of the series.

Worse, members told The Australian, they have been told that they will not be able to return immediately home to other states after the fourth Test because they will have to complete six more days in isolation.

Cricket Australia said it was working to finalise the details of the quarantine and hoping the players would not have to serve the extra time after the fourth match.

Some in the camp are wearing the restrictions more heavily than others.

Steve Smith did not dismiss the chance that not seeing his wife for over 150 days could be taking its toll when asked about it during the second Test.

“Maybe, it’s possible, I haven’t seen the wife for four and a half months I think it is, it’s a good stint away,” he told SEN Test Cricket before the fourth day at the MCG.

“Those things can have an impact on people’s mental health and preparations and all things like that. I’m not making any excuses by any stretch of the imagination it’s certainly very different times at the moment but it is different, that’s for sure.”

The SCG will operate at half capacity – around 20,000 – for the Test scheduled to begin on January 7 but the government acknowledges that could change.

“If we need to re-evaluate some of our settings, update the compliance, the compliance measures and the safety plan, we won’t hesitate to do that,” Berejiklian said.

“But if there is an opportunity for us to hold events we should … community safety always comes first, but we also have to keep jobs going, we don’t want to see more people out of their job, out of their livelihood.”

There is an outside possibility cricket could backflip and hold the match in Melbourne, but even that city is on edge after a handful of cases were detected in recent days.

Sources at the SCG said it would not be an issue to host back to back tests if the situation changed and the game was locked out of Queensland.

Fast bowler Umesh Yadav has been ruled out of the rest of the series after tearing his calf during the second Test. The Indians also lost Mohammed Shami who broke his arm.

Rohit Sharma completed his two weeks in Sydney quarantine and joined the side in Melbourne.

David Warner, Will Pucovski and Sean Abbott completed their Melbourne quarantines and joined the team.

Warner and Abbott had been in Sydney and were denied the chance to join before Christmas as planned.