The pandemic accentuates the gulf between sport and life

Cricketer Ben Stokes has put his career on hold to spend time with his father. Picture: AFP

Never has the gulf between sport and life been so wide. No state border is more clearly marked. No line more firmly drawn. It’s an extraordinary time for the ordinary, but the extraordinary among us have found their boat pushed even further out.

When England lost the first Test to South Africa last summer, Ben Stokes had another perspective on events.

“It can feel like the worst thing ever, but there are a lot more important things,” the pugnacious all-rounder declared.

The cricketer’s father, Ged, fell ill during the series in South Africa and underwent three operations in five weeks. It gave the Stokes a clearer perspective. However he played on, clear that his father — a man who had a finger amputated because allowing it to heal would have been too much of an interruption to his rugby career — shared similar priorities.

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Stokes has now pulled the pin on the current series against Pakistan, flying to New Zealand to be with his sick father. The decision means he will miss the last two Tests of the series, which England lead 1-0.

The all-rounder, who had taken to celebrating milestones by making a gesture that hides the same digit his father lost, will have to serve out a quarantine period, effectively ruling out any return for the third Test beginning on August 21.

Elite sports people have long been considered to live isolated from common concerns. The cultural review of Australian cricket referred to the players living in a “gilded bubble” which they presumably had little interest in breaching. Almost all who participate in high-level sporting competitions now live in a biosecure bubble which denies them certain privileges, but extends others.

They move about more freely than many of us, but are forced to deny themselves much. And it is not just the opportunity to have a coffee or meal without invoking fines and a suspension. In the AFL, Bachar Houli opted to be with his ill mother rather than teammates for a number of games; Gary Ablett chose to be with his son.

In normal times they may have missed a few games, or may even have been able to attend to personal crises while maintaining their day job, but not now. Houli made it back into the fold when his mother recovered. Should Ablett make the decision to return to the game, he will presumably have to quarantine as he is in Victoria.

In normal times, Ricky Ponting missed the second Test of the 2011 series against Sri Lanka to attend the birth of his second child, but was able to wing his way back in time for the third Test. Shane Watson managed to use the time granted him by his suspension from the third Test of the 2013 series against India for crimes against homework to dash home and be on hand for the birth of his second child. Watson not only made it back for the next match but was installed as acting captain.

Such swift movement would be next to impossible now because quarantine restrictions at either end of a journey make travel by plane as time consuming as travel by boat.

Players whose partners are expecting a child, or who are stuck at home in difficult domestic circumstances during a Stage 4 lockdown, will find any decision to leave a tour difficult.

Shimron Hetmeyer, Darren Bravo and Keemo Paul all opted not to tour the UK for the recent three Test series against England. No official explanation was given but it was understood the prospect of so long away in a country where so many had died did not appeal. When you consider the members of the squad endured eight weeks cloistered in hotels attached to the grounds on half pay in a country that had tragically mishandled the pandemic, it was a surprise there weren’t more who stayed home.

Still, it was a big call, Bravo has played a lot of international cricket but Hetmeyer with 16 Tests and Paul with just three have given up the chance to get a foothold in the national team.

Elite sports people learn early that they must make sacrifices others don’t to achieve excellence and continue to do the same once it is achieved. At school, training camps and representative duties are a form of social distancing from peer groups and it's a distance that is generally maintained to career’s end.

Many an athlete has stepped from the dressing room into the sunlight and realised normal life has left them behind.

Few of us are leading normal lives right now, but rarely has sport demanded such an abnormal one from its participants.