West Indies send a message to Australia about cricket’s new reality

The West Indies sent a clear message to Australia — and the rest of cricket — about the difficulties of the game in a new reality.

Jason Holdersent a clear message about the difficulties of the game in a new reality

At first glance it was Stuart Broad on the rebound who did in the West Indies.

Fatigue, however, played a significant part in the visitors’ diminishing returns on their tour of England and sent a clear message to Australia — and the rest of cricket — about the difficulties of the game in a new reality.

Every single day of the West Indies 51 days in the UK were spent at one of two cricket grounds. They ate, slept, bathed, trained and breathed in a cricket bubble. The only time they were ever more than a few hundred metres from centre wicket was when they caught the bus from Southampton to Manchester.

“Opening your curtains and just seeing a cricket ground,” took its toll, Holder said after the last day’s play at Old Trafford.

Not only were they sleeping at the office on work days, they were there on weekends and days off too. The only people they saw were players, support staff and hotel employees. Oh, and Broad who overcame the insult of being left out of the first Test to take his 500th wicket on the last day of the third. It’s easy to get sick of the sight of him when you’re the opposition.

Australians get that long-distance stare somewhere about the fourth Test of an England Ashes series. It hits earlier in India, where touring life is pretty much confined to grounds and hotels — even if they are not attached to grounds, as the ones at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton and Old Trafford are.

You can see the haunted look on visiting teams toward the end of a long summer, but the process appears to have been fast-tracked for the West Indies in the UK.

The visitors were lauded for leaving the safety of the Caribbean for a country that had completely botched its initial pandemic response and seen 40,000 die.

Their willingness, however, to endure eight weeks in isolation adds another dimension to their efforts. England cricket owes them. Those who argued that Jofra Archer’s quarantine breach was a minor offence and worthy only of a fine were wrong. His delinquency was an insult to an opposition enduring so much for the contest and one that could have had grave consequences.

If Australia was cheeky enough they could ask that the England players wear ankle bracelets when they arrive in England for their white ball series in September. Fancy flying all that way, enduring quarantines when you land there and get back home, only to have some dill in the home side ruin the whole thing.

You just hope that after the Archer episode everyone understands the seriousness of the situation.

Moving on from the foolishness and back to the fatigue issue, David Warner observed on Tuesday that he thought a lack of cricket would give the Australians an advantage when they fly over for the three ODIs and three T20s — which are set to be confirmed within the next week.

England’s ODI squad is already in lockdown at the Ageas Bowl ahead of a three-match series against Ireland. It is an entirely different group of players from the Test outfit except for bowler Saqib Mahmood, who switched bubbles before the second Test to join the short format players.

England has a three-Test series against Pakistan followed by three T20s in August before the Australians arrive.

“We will obviously be quite fresh and keen to get at it when we get over there,” Warner said. “I think from where I stand and you look at the England team, they’ve been in lockdown and quarantine for the last two weeks, preparing for their next series.

“They’re going to be in lockdown until the end of our series for a while — so we’re going over there fresh with an open mind and ready and keen to play cricket. And not in that bio bubble yet.”

Holder made another observation before being freed from the cricket bubble.

“If something doesn’t happen soon we’ll see less international cricket being played by smaller countries because we simply can’t afford it,” Holder said. “We’ve gone from having four, five-match series, down to two and three. And it’s very difficult to host any more than that for us, particularly the Caribbean.”

Test cricket is in trouble in these financially difficult times. A tour against India has everybody licking their lips and counting the cash, a game against Afghanistan to start the summer begins to look like an expense on the balance sheet that is not worth the effort.

Cricket needs to be cautious, if its next steps are to backtrack, that it leaves itself a way to reverse such a move in better times.